KaTooMer
~SPONSOR~
- Jul 28, 1999
- 435
- 0
So last October I moved to the City of Chicago, where the water is free and everything else costs twice what it should. I'm still adjusting to my 1100 square feet of condo, priced at what 120 acres of prime Illinois farmland could be bought where I come from. Also adjusting to working on my bikes in a dimly lit 10x20 storage unit (I really miss my garage). Over the weekend I pulled off the forks and shock from my brand new, never-even-started 2004 KX250 (it's a long story). I packed them in my $20 plastic Walmart gun case for shipping to Drew Smith at W.E.R. Drew revalved my '03 KX250 suspension for woods riding and did a good enough job that the '04 suspension is getting the same treatment.
Last night I drove downtown to the Loop and parked half a block from the UPS service center. Gun case in hand, I walked over to to the UPS place. Surprisingly, nobody gives a second look to a guy walking through downtown Chicago, at night, with a gun case large enough to carry a pair of AK-47's. I walked through the polished marble lobby of an office building to get from the Palmer House Hilton parking garage to the UPS place and even the security guys there didn't seem to care (my guess is, people carrying large firearms in the city probably don't go to the trouble of putting them in gun cases).
First thing the nice lady behind the UPS counter asks for is a picture ID. I show her my Missouri driver’s license. She says it doesn’t match my home address (true). I made up a story about how I just moved here (sort of true) and will be getting an Illinois license soon (pretty much true). Now she’s really not sure what to do. I tell her the Missouri license is all I got. Finally, reluctantly, she says it’s ok.
Now it’s time to weigh the gun case. She gives it one look and says “You have to have some type of locking mechanism on that.” I ask her to elaborate. She can’t. Just repeats what she said. Keep in mind, I’ve duct-taped the 4 latches to keep them closed. Put a pair of zip-ties around each of the holes where padlocks could be used to secure it. And I specially drilled about 8 extra holes where the two sides of the gun case come together, just large enough to wrap even more zip-ties. My point is, the gun case is not coming open accidentally. There’s $3,000 in suspension parts in there. No way, no how. I ask, “What if I run out somewhere and get a padlock, would that work?” She says yeah, probably. I say, “Great. But what happens when the gun case arrives at its destination. How will the recipient open it?” This she has to think about. She responds, “I’m sorry, you have to have a locking mechanism.”
Around the corner was a FedEx counter. I took it there. No picture ID needed. No locking mechanism needed. And $29 later, I was done. And for that 30 minutes of torture, I had the privilege of paying the Palmer House Hilton $8 for parking. Gotta love Chicago (and UPS).
Last night I drove downtown to the Loop and parked half a block from the UPS service center. Gun case in hand, I walked over to to the UPS place. Surprisingly, nobody gives a second look to a guy walking through downtown Chicago, at night, with a gun case large enough to carry a pair of AK-47's. I walked through the polished marble lobby of an office building to get from the Palmer House Hilton parking garage to the UPS place and even the security guys there didn't seem to care (my guess is, people carrying large firearms in the city probably don't go to the trouble of putting them in gun cases).
First thing the nice lady behind the UPS counter asks for is a picture ID. I show her my Missouri driver’s license. She says it doesn’t match my home address (true). I made up a story about how I just moved here (sort of true) and will be getting an Illinois license soon (pretty much true). Now she’s really not sure what to do. I tell her the Missouri license is all I got. Finally, reluctantly, she says it’s ok.
Now it’s time to weigh the gun case. She gives it one look and says “You have to have some type of locking mechanism on that.” I ask her to elaborate. She can’t. Just repeats what she said. Keep in mind, I’ve duct-taped the 4 latches to keep them closed. Put a pair of zip-ties around each of the holes where padlocks could be used to secure it. And I specially drilled about 8 extra holes where the two sides of the gun case come together, just large enough to wrap even more zip-ties. My point is, the gun case is not coming open accidentally. There’s $3,000 in suspension parts in there. No way, no how. I ask, “What if I run out somewhere and get a padlock, would that work?” She says yeah, probably. I say, “Great. But what happens when the gun case arrives at its destination. How will the recipient open it?” This she has to think about. She responds, “I’m sorry, you have to have a locking mechanism.”
Around the corner was a FedEx counter. I took it there. No picture ID needed. No locking mechanism needed. And $29 later, I was done. And for that 30 minutes of torture, I had the privilege of paying the Palmer House Hilton $8 for parking. Gotta love Chicago (and UPS).
