Unlike in the States, where you can do self-checkout and use the automated mail machines to buy your postage for the majority of your packages, here you HAVE to do the customs forms for every thing you mail larger than an envelope, which means you have to have a clerk take your package. Afterwards, the mail goes out 1-2 times a week, depending on the rotator schedule, and then it finds its merry way to its intended recipients. Sometimes it ends up in exotic locations before it gets here, but it always seems to find its way out of here with no problems.
Our tiny post office doesn't have an area where you can pick up boxes and forms ahead of time if it is closed---everything is within one small room, and it's not open very many hours in the week (and never on the weekends). So post office visits are always an event for me, usually requiring me to take off a half hour to hour of work.
A few months ago I ordered a DNA kit. This is not only for genealogical research, but to see if I am prone to a large list of genetic diseases. If you could find out if you had the gene for breast cancer, would you take a test? How about Alzheimer's? Especially if at least one person close to you has had each?
At first I was excited. But then, not so much. Do you see why I suddenly had second thoughts and let the kit sit in a drawer for several weeks?
But then the FDA decided that DNA companies cannot do what it called "health testing" anymore, and suddenly I realized that I may have waited too late. No problem---I got an email saying that because I bought my kit before the ruling, I would be eligible for the genetic component---but now there was a quick turn-around because there was a short deadline.
And this, folks, is how I ended up at the GTMO post office with my saliva in a box.
You don't think anything of mailing a vial of spit to a lab until you realize---oh my god, I have to fill out that crazy customs form. And I didn't even think about it until the guy called me to the counter.
He said, "What's in the box?" I was like, "Ummmmm, well, it's DNA."
*blank look on his face*
"It's a DNA kit. You know, I'm mailing a lab my DNA."
I don't know if you can technically mail your bodily fluids internationally, and especially from somewhere like this place, where every piece of mail is scrutinized more than most because we have the (dis)pleasure of housing "that place" a few miles from my casa. This is why I said "DNA" instead of "saliva."
The guy suddenly got really quiet, told me my forms were in order, and gave me a sympathetic smile.
I got to my car and then it hit me. Oh. My. Gobble.
This guy probably thinks I'm sending off a paternity test, Jerry Springer style.
I laughed hysterically all the way back to work. No, I don't need to find out who my mama's babydaddy is---all you have to do is look at my dad and see that he has marked me for life.
When I got an email saying, "Your results are in!" I was excited and very nervous.
The genetic news was exciting and a relief (no "bad" genes).
And interesting news: I knew I was mostly Western European from genealogical research I'd done on my own and with my husband's grandma, but this test broke it down to some specifics. There is also a database and people have contacted me because genetically, we are 2nd or 3rd cousins. People with exotic, foreign sounding last names. I haven't contacted any of them yet, but I am going to finally do it once I can really sit down and digest the info. Incidentally, this isn't easy when it takes each webpage five minutes to load.
The best part? Our youngest wants to look at "our DNA" every night. Here's a recent conversation:
Kid 2: Daddy, guess what? I am so excited I get to see my genes!
Hubby: Um, what?
Kid 2: My genes, dad, my genes. G-E-N-E-S genes, not blue jeans. It's a homophone.
Hubby: Um. . . okay. . .
Kid 2: If you think homophones are exciting, I should tell you about diphthongs.
Kid 2 is 8 years old, by the way. Good genes (not jeans) aside, his teacher is amazing and he has grown intellectually by leaps and bounds since we landed on this rock.
He wants me to go back over the results with him and he's loving looking at the map of ancestors. We are British/Scottish, French, German, Scandinavian, Northern African, and Western African. My mother's genome group is rare and carried primarily by Native Americans. (Because I only have X chromosomes, I can't find out my father's genome group unless he takes this test).
I am not, incidentally, Asian. Not even 0.01%. I can't believe after flinching my entire life when dozens and dozens of well-meaning but really, really culturally sheltered/ignorant people have asked me the racist question, "Are you a Chink?" (it's a racial epithet, people, and never, ever acceptable) that I am not even remotely Asian. However, I am still fake Asian (it's a GTMO thing---so I can feel like part of the amazing group of women I've met here who are part or all Korean, Japanese, Filipina, or Chamorro, they tell people that I am Chinese).
And now, when someone asks that question I hate, "Where are you from?" I still don't have an answer. . . but I can with some authority tell you where my ancestors came from, and I guess that's a start.
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