Grist in the mill: Fury and awe over vast inhumane systems

Four O’clock in the morning. I’m washed up in a basement apartment in a town I struggled mightily to escape thirty years ago. No sign of dawn yet and I am learning the full meaning of “circumstances beyond my control.”

Let me try to tell this story without giving you the headache I have. Six weeks ago, I shipped twelve boxes with the majority of everything my kids and I own in the world from the Czech Republic back to Oregon, where I was born. I was scared by tales of US customs debacles, so I used a moving company—one recommended by a friend of a friend.

But that company passed me off to an international corporate shell and that company put my stuff in a warehouse in London and doubled the price of the shipment, held my stuff for ransom and threatened to destroy it if I didn’t pay within three days. I paid—emptying out the bank account set up to give my kids a start in a new country and a new school year. What choice did I have? Five thousand dollars all told, maybe not a catastrophic sum by middle class American standards but a decade’s savings for me—and an unimaginable sum to much of the world.

Then, the company insisted I hadn’t paid, claiming the money never arrived. I’d paid by Visa debit card. My bank sent confirmation that the company had received the payment and the money was gone from my account. The corporate hacks on the other end of a $83-dollar international phone call insisted I had not paid and refused to trace the payment.

Tears. Rage. Frustration. I have never wanted to do violence so badly. But I couldn’t even cuss at them safely. My children’s momentos and photos of childhood are at their mercy. The irreplaceable pottery made by Dave Waln, a family friend, is at their mercy. They’ve even got the clippings of every newspaper story I ever wrote.

(Call me stupid but this was supposed to be the safest way to transport our most precious stuff, safer than the mail, safer even than airline luggage, which does sometimes go astray.)

I’ve felt lost and betrayed and utterly bereft a handful of times before—when dumped by the love of my life five thousand miles from home at the age of nineteen, when I miscarried and lost the hope of having a biological child, or when my adopted child’s diagnosis of a serious disability was confirmed to me while I sat in a crowd of judgmental mothers of perfect children. I’ve hit low spots, sure enough.

But none of those were engineered by giant systems with inexorably turning wheels that grind some people into dust while others feed the machines with their little daily labors. Mostly the lowest points are things no human person is responsible for—acts of nature or of the gods. And while they prompt a dark night of the soul and even futile anger, you know that there is no one and nothing that can change the situation.

In this situation, there were people who could change it, people causing it and cheerfully insinuating that my only recourse would be through international lawyers, which would cost far more than their demand to pay the doubled price yet again.

I tried to go through channels, of course. But back here in Oregon, I am the expert in all things international. My family and friends look at me with wide frightened eyes when I describe this. It’s beyond anything they can cope with. I called a national FBI fraud hotline and was told that they couldn’t help me because I had actually intended to pay this company, whereas the fraud they chase is only when someone’s identity or card information is stolen outright. I called Visa and was told again that they could not help because I am not a bank.

i spent more money I couldn’t spare to call the distant bank that had handled the transaction back in the Czech Republic. They insisted their document should be respected and negotiations with Visa through them would take at least three weeks—by which time the threats of the ransomers would no doubt be long since carried out.

I considered trying to get a lawyer, but I’ve heard how different British law is. They don’t even have lawyers exactly. They have “barristers.” How much would that cost? No doubt the hacks who taunted me on the phone from London were right that it would cost more than just paying them again.

Dawn comes gray and pale through the basement windows. I heat water for tea. The water is acrid with the smell of chlorine and something worse. The tea is barely discernible. My heart is so heavy. This is my life now. An apartment with bare walls and frugally filled shelves, missing keepsakes, bad water and a neighborhood full of endless asphalt, gaunt addicts and warnings to lock every door tight.

Creative Commons image by Ekaterina Didkovskaya

Hands shaking, I tap NPR on my phone screen. I don’t have the focus for an audio book or even one of the blogs or podcasts I follow. The soothing voices on this radio station of my childhood will help a little, I hope.

But the news breaks into my despairing gray morning with Afghanistan—desperate families standing in the desert outside Kabul airport, American humiliation and the vicious Taliban. I have to sit down. I’m reeling, pulled back into my own past with the young interpreter I fought so hard to get out of a war zone where he faced execution.

Even if they are completely anonymous to me, those families in the desert haunt me and goad me. As hopeless as my situation seems, as much as I may be nothing but grist in the ginormous mill of the international finance system, that system needs grist, damn it!

In theory, that system is supposed to work for me. And somehow there must be a way.

That’s maybe the most essential difference between the “first world” and the rest. We may be cogs in a giant system, but the system needs cogs and mostly it is built to keep us more or less alive.

I think of the families of Afghans who worked for American organizations, all those who believed in the dream that American imperialism offered. Now mostly they are trapped and the Taliban has lists of who they are. Journalists say the country is about to go dark for a long time and those people will be utterly at the mercy of ideological zealots who previously killed anyone who stepped out of line.

The ginormous system of international borders, citizenship and asylum claims is not rigged to work for them. Not even in theory. I know with absolute certainty that there are women like me there in Afghanistan, who have worked for NGOs or written as journalists, like me, and who now stand in that place of utter despair and helplessness, knowing they may die for it. Their children may die. And there is nothing they can do to stop it.

That helplessness and complete disempowerment. That’s the worst part of this day and age.

I’m sure life was hard back in the day. And yes, there were warlords who took over and massacred people. I’m not saying there weren’t. The difference with Afghanistan today is that we did this. Not just the war. Let’s put all the convoluted arguments about “nation building” aside.

I’m talking about not letting them get on a plane and come to the US earlier, not giving them visas years ago. That’s how our country caused this at the most basic level. We have borders and immigration policies. And yes, I know all the arguments about why we need them. Maybe some of those arguments even have merit, but the fact is that people in offices made those decisions and turned down visa applications.

And people are dying who wouldn’t have if the stamps had fallen elsewhere or the papers were pushed into a different pile. Systems made of people did this. And those systems are by and large a creation of modern times.

That’s why I feel a kinship with the Afghans, no matter how disproportionate the stakes. Our family belongings are at the mercy of multiple systems made of people—the corporation itself, the international finance system and the systems of international freight shipping. All of these are systems made of people.

I’ve lived through natural disasters—devastating storms, floods and even fire. Those things can make a person feel powerless in a way, but there is also a lot of empowerment in it.

When my family lost their home to fire while my mother was pregnant with me, they rebuilt… in the snow… with hand tools. When a storm isolated us from civilization and electrical power for a week, we put chunks of ice on the stove to thaw for fresh water and survived on stored food. When Covid hit, I didn't have to join the frenzy at grocery stores because I already had a well-stocked pantry and homemade masks weren’t hard to make.

Disasters feel indiscriminate, but they are not entirely disempowering.

Creative Commons image by RNW.org

These massive human systems take my breath away in a different manner. There is no recourse, no hope, utter disempowerment. That’s the curse of our times.

Six weeks later…

I’m in the backyard dressed in rag-bag clothes, painting stain onto boards to build shelves. I’m already smiling because my father has come to help me saw and hang them. The sun is shining. I got a really heavy-duty water filter and I can actually make tea, even if my beloved mugs may be gone forever.

Then a guy in a baggy trucker’s shirt comes in through the open gate and looks around uncertainly. “I think I have a delivery for. you.”

“Twelve boxes?” I gasp with fluttering excitement.

“Well, it’s a pallet. I didn’t count them.” He replies.

There are a few more anxious minutes as we direct him to drive around back, so that we can unload the pallet near my apartment door. Then, as he lowers it I count quickly. All twelve are actually there!!!

And they are battered and crushed with corners blown out but mostly the cardboard and plastic wrap held. There’s one large rip in the side of a box. I peer through and find it entirely blocked by a large copy of Erik the Viking, an out-of-print childhood favorite of mine. Good hold on the shield wall, Erik!

Over the next several days, I unpack each box carefully. A few legos and the odd rock from my collection of too many crystals may have fallen out a corner hole, but mostly our stuff is in remarkably good shape. The pottery was packed in layers of tightly secured cardboard. This wasn’t my first rodeo. Almost all made it through. One glass and wood picture frame smashed beyond recognition, one pottery diffuser crushed to gravel (it wasn’t one of Dave’s), some dented tins and a few cracks in plastic toy containers… But really those are small losses against my very real fears of never getting any of it at all.

How did I get them to stop the scams and let go? I’m not even sure what exactly did it. I held off their threats with official sounding emails and a friend letting them think he was my lawyer. I did get the bank to follow up with Visa, though it took weeks. I contacted a British moving industry association and a London-based consumer rights organization. I learned to write brief, very stern, very business-like, non-emotional, realistically threatening emails. I spent countless hours battling this particular incidence of corporate greed and hubris.

And eventually they agreed to trace the payment and they found, of course, that it was in their account all the time. So, they grudgingly fulfilled their side of the contract.

For the record, the company is called Baggage Hub. Mark it down. Tell your international friends and family. Stay away. Beware! Bad reviews don’t even cover it, but when there is time, oh, will I ever be writing some reviews.

Life is looking better here as well. I found a medical transportation service covered by insurance, so I can get to doctor’s appointments even if I can’t drive and public transit is minimal. My son’s school seems to be working out. My special needs kid may be getting a bit more of the help and treatment she needs. Piece by piece, bit by bit. It’s still chaos but there is progress.

And there are stresses that are no longer there. The interethnic conflict of Central Europe is far away. The unfriendly neighbors who shouted and threw stones when I rode my electric scooter have been replaced by smiling, chatty neighbors, even if some of them are in worse shape than I am. I look forward to getting up in the morning and I sometimes get to walk in the dry, semi-desert mountains.

We don’t hear about Afghanistan anymore. The news has moved on, but I think of them, the ones who didn’t get out. And the one’s who did but had to leave loved ones, homes, keepsakes and old photos behind. I still don’t understand why them and not me. OK, I lost my savings and had a few weeks of great stress, but really in the end, I am still one for whom the large systems of humanity mostly work, not one they work against.

My heart carries you, Jayesh and Makai, my Afghan friends met 23 years ago among refugees in Kazakhstan.

The car stole my pants: Petty tyrants and rental cars

At a deserted, minimal-service campground in the Washington Cascades a jet-lagged Czech tourist pulls to a stop in a rented Nissan.

When he cuts the lights, the night is black. He spent longer than he meant to hiking before finding a cheap campground.

The air is surprisingly cold for late summer when he opens the door. It’s the altitude. He turns off the ignition and leans the driver’s side seat all the way back in preparation for sleep.

Then he gets out, stretches in the crisp night air and walks around to the back of the car. He pops the hatchback to take out a sleeping bag and tosses it into the reclined seat. Then he strips off his jeans and socks and lays them out across the backs of the rear seats to air out.

Creative Commons image by Ninian Reid

He just came from the Seattle airport after an 18-hour flight. He rented the car from the Alamo desk. And tomorrow night will see him to Northeastern Oregon where his children are visiting their American grandmother. This is his only night on the road alone, so his “camp” will be basic. The back door bumps his head and he shuts it.

It must have been the rocking of the car when he shut the back hatch. In the light coming from inside the car, he watches the driver’s side door, which he left open, swing shut on its own. The sound of the radio he left on is muffled as it clicks closed. While he makes his way back to open the door again, the lights in the car go out.

Now the night is blacker then black. He fumbles for a door handle and pulls. Nothing. It’s locked hard and fast.

Worry niggles at him as he reaches for the adjacent door handle. Still nothing. Frantically, he feels his way around to the far side of the car in the dark and tries the other two doors.

“Kurva!” he yells into the night. No one in hundreds of miles could possibly know his Eastern European curse words. And his bare feet are burning from the cold by now. It is 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

Barefoot and in his underwear, he has no protection and the temperature of the high mountain night is still dropping. He curses himself for a fool and the out-of-date car for its archaic locking mechanism that went out of style twenty years ago in most places. He thinks wistfully of the phone stuck to his dashboard, but it wouldn’t matter that much. He noticed that it lost signal twenty minutes ago, as he wound his way up this mountain canyon on.a lonely little road.

Now this is the end of the road and it’s 9 pm. It’s unlikely anyone else will be up here tonight. He is in for a very bad time of it.

Unless of course, he can get into the car.

I have debated this in my head. I think a wealthy person would be more likely to break a window of the rental car than a non-wealthy Eastern European, because a relatively wealthy person would know they could technically afford the cost. In this case, he is a professional, confident man, a senior surveyor at the Czech National Highway Administration, but he still makes only around $15,000 a year. (Not a typo. Per year. Not per month. That’s just how Eastern European salaries are.)

I know all this, of course, because the man caught out in the night far from home in his underwear was my husband. He was on his way to my mother's house to pick up the children after I left them there for a visit a few weeks earlier. He had a little experience with rental cars, having rented a handful of times in Europe but I was the one who put in the initial order in English and it was my first time ever. It felt momentous, but then there was this and I wasn’t there to help or to suffer with him.

Of course, I didn’t know about it until days later. My husband, being frugal but unaware of auto parts pricing, used a rock to carefully break the smallest window at the far back of the car. He cleared the broken glass from the edges and then put his arm through to open the back door from inside. He hoped—erroneously as it turned out—that this small window would be cheaper to replace than a larger one.

Being an Eastern European, he also did not think immediately about insurance. He assumed he would have to take the hit for this one way or another. But the choice was between that or freezing or possibly attempting to walk more than ten miles barefoot and in his underwear to the last sign of civilization he had passed.

Why didn’t he realize the door might lock automatically and take precautions? Well, no modern car has been equipped that way for a long time, either in the US or in Europe. This was the kind of thing funky old cars used to do, but he hadn’t encounter anything like it in many years. It simply never occurred to him that the car would automatically lock with the keys still in the ignition, though turned off.

When he made it to my mother’s house the next day with the small back window taped up, her reaction was much more typically American.

“That’s terrible! The car company is responsible for this! They endangered you! They had better provide you with a new car. It is unbelievable that they didn’t warn you about those dangerous locks!” She called the company and gave them a piece of her mind. The representative immediately agreed that the company would cover the cost and exchange the car.

My husband then drove an hour an a half to another city to pick up a promised new car, only to find that it wasn’t there as the company representative had assured my mother it would be. That was a warning sign of things to come.

It wasn’t until a month and a half later though, that we got the mildly threatening letter in the mail at home, saying that Alamo had determined the incident was in fact my husband’s fault and that he would be billed for the damages.

We tried everything we could think of to get them to see reason. But someone at the company had decided to use their little bit of power in life to deny him insurance coverage, despite the fact that we had paid extra for an upgraded insurance policy.

The company never did answer my most basic question, “What precisely did the company expect him to do?” I wonder if becoming seriously ill from exposure is actually on their options list?

They. had not warned him about the strange and out-dated locking mechanism, which made this a malfunction of the vehicle. The car’s malfunction endangered him with serious physical harm. In such a case, the damage to the car does not appear to fall under the categories of “voluntary” or “willful” by any stretch of the imagination.

But apparently the Alamo rental company would rather my husband suffered grievous physical harm and later sued the company, rather than take reasonable steps, which in the end caused less than $400 in damage.

This is the kind of absurdity that plagues the modern human world. We often complain about it, as if no one is really responsible. But in truth human beings make these kinds of decisions. It is on us to use common sense and basic empathy, whenever we are put in a position with a small amount of power over another.

The people at Alamo didn’t use either common sense or empathy in handing over a car with this odd and dangerous malfunction or in assessing the damage claim. I wish I could say that I’ll find a better company next time, but the best I can do is to find a different company. This is why so many of us dislike corporations in general, and will choose any small business in favor of a corporation. The size and impersonal nature of corporations make common sense or empathy much less likely.