My October column, Canadian Kindness, was about my experiences having a breakdown in Canada and the people who were eager to help me continue on my way. My misfortune turned perfect strangers into heroes and friends who I plan to go out of my way to visit just for fun this year.
In full disclosure, there was a negative part of the story that I decided to omit. I didn’t want the incredible story of kindness to end on a sour note, so I decided not to include it. However, after very recent events, I do have to come clean!
The Earth is a giant sphere and rotates. Each rotation equals a day. The hands of a clock spin slowly in a circle, and the fat hand travels around twice each day. The rear wheel on my motorcycle revolves around an axle at varying speeds, but after 1120 rotations, it has travelled one mile.
What goes around, comes around, is an old idiom often used to explain that actions have consequences and the way you treat others is the way someone will treat you in the future. It can be used in a negative or positive way to explain karma.
For this story, what goes around, comes around is quite literal!
If you recall, I broke down in the middle of nowhere, Canada. My new bike had a set of old wheels with over 200,000 miles on them and the bearings had worn out. My first attempt at getting back on the road was to ask Elin, my wife, to overnight a complete rear wheel assembly I had in the garage to Thunder Bay Canada, where I expected to pick it up the next day and continue on my trip.
The story continues with being assisted by the folks at Excalibur Motorsports, who spend the day getting my old wheel repaired and me back on the road to reach my next event in time.
What I didn’t include in my story was the tragic conclusion regarding my brand new wheel that had been shipped overnighted.
Stuck in Canada was not where I needed to be, and I knew it would be very expensive to ship a complete wheel assembly, (wheel, brake rotor, tire with tube) overnight internationally, but at that moment, it was my only viable option.
Shipping the wheel cost $900. When my wife asked what I wanted to insure it for, I told her to say $200. I knew the wheel was worth a lot more, but considering the package was overnight and international, I thought it was about to be handled by a three star Post Master General wearing white gloves, hand delivering it across the border to Justin Trudeau. I mean, who would expect such a high priority package of being mingled with .78 cent stamped birthday cards? I certainly wasn’t going to give them more of my money for silly insurance, $900 was enough!
Well, the following day came and went. I was fixed up and sent on my way to cross the rest of Canada and reached Seattle two days later. I had given the repair shop permission to retrieve the package containing the wheel and I would figure out how to get it from them on my way home or at a later date.
When tracking showed the overnight package had been through multiple states and had not even left the country two days later, I called the shipping company and asked that it be stopped and returned to sender, which was my wife in New Hampshire. I was assured it would be returned to sender.
I spend the week in Washington and returned home, all the while checking the tracking number, wondering where the package was heading. After a week, it made it to Canada and then it showed that the receiver refused the package and the tracking just stopped right there.
I had called the UPS Store in New Hampshire a few times and they assured me it would head back to us within a week. It never arrived, and the tracking number never moved from a warehouse in Ontario Canada. A couple weeks went by and any attempt to find my wheel was met with a dead end.
“Your package was lost and is not recoverable. We can put in a claim for the full value amount of $200.”
By now, I had looked up the cost of a complete wheel assembled with a tire and it was over $2,000! I begged them to try and have the warehouse locate the package, as a refund would not help me at all, I just wanted that wheel back!
After three weeks, UPS refunded me the $200 value I had placed on the contents plus the full shipping costs. I wasn’t happy. How can a high priority international overnight package that weighs 40 pounds just disappear?
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I figured that once they got the official notice that the receiver was refusing the package, the wheel was either tossed into a dead pile or ended up in the bed of someone’s F-150 and found a new home. It was a brand-new, shiny wheel—clearly worth some money, as the declaration paperwork on the box even said so.
Despite the settlement for the lost package, I checked the tracking number every week or so to see if there were any movement, because I do believe in unicorns and miracles. The package was lost in June. In September, a weird addition appeared on the tracking history. It showed the package had an import fee due on it. I clicked the link and it said $126 was due and had a link to pay it in Canadian funds.
I didn’t want to give up, and I had a weird feeling about the new update on my package tracking. What if it had been sitting on someone’s desk the last few months and was waiting for a tariff to be paid for it’s return?
I went to the UPS Store and spoke to the owner who had helped me through the ordeal. He made a few calls and said they had never seen that before, but my package was not recovered and if I paid the fee, I would not be able to get it refunded.
I am a gambling man, and my history of overcoming seemingly unsurmountable challenges is well known, so I paid the fee. Nothing happened. Nothing. I was out the additional money, but I felt like I had at least tried everything I could. I do not like to give up. I had not replaced the missing wheel yet and still felt some sort of hope that it might be found.
After six months, the tracking information disappears into the abyss, and my screenshot of it’s travels was my only memory of my missing wheel. Every time I told the story of the incident, I showed the photo of the tracking data and the sad ending for the missing wheel that was forever lost.
February 11th, was just like any other Wednesday. I was feeding the wood stove to keep warm while working on the bike in the garage getting ready for the riding season which started in a week. A few expected packages were delivered from Amazon and while I was sorting through stuff I would need to pack for Daytona Bike Week, I heard another truck backing in to my driveway.
As soon as I saw the abused cardboard box with multiple shipping stickers of varying colors leaning against the garage door, My heart stopped. Could it be? Impossible! I screamed, “NO %#$% WAY!”, loud enough that my wife heard me from the kitchen.
It had been seven and a half months since my wife shipped the wheel OVERNIGHT to Canada. Seven and a half months since any update on it’s whereabouts. Four and a half months since I paid the import fee. It had been around the country, into Canada, lost, written off, and somehow made it back home on its own without a whisper or notice of it being found.
As I travel the country by motorcycle raising awareness about people living with chronic illness, I am constantly improving my own health while learning amazing life lessons.
Today’s story reminds me to expect the unexpected, never give up, and what goes round, does indeed come around….. eventually!
