Today, the French Postal Service is one of the most efficient in the world, if not the most efficient. A letter mailed from Paris, for example, takes one day to reach its French destination that means even a French colony such as Martinique or New Caledonia. One day. So why will any French citizen roll his or her eyes and grunt when you mention La Poste?

It was November and for Christmas, I wanted to send my mother a Dior jacket from Paris. Although the jacket cost half the price in France than it did in the United States, it was still a pretty pricey item for me so I needed to insure the shipment.

I rose early, carried my properly labeled parcel to the post office, and waited in line the customary twenty minutes. One window out of four was open to the seven-foot line of huffing customers, tapping their feet and shifting their weight while one male employee sat at a desk in the rear of the office, drinking espresso from a demi-tasse and reading Le Monde. In line, several people remarked on his laziness and although he must have heard the comments, he pretended otherwise. Another woman behind the clear Plexiglas row of windows busily counted stacks of money and from time to time, disappeared into another office cut off from view.

Finally my turn arrived and I stepped up to the window, my watch showing that I still had fifteen minutes to get to work. I asked to insure the package. Simple, yes?

No, no, no. Because the package was going to another country, special wrapping was required to make it insurable. The overworked woman behind the Plexiglas was not sure what these special instructions were so she called over the banker woman, who in turn asked newspaper guy. I now had ten minutes to get to work and literally smelled coffee breath coming from over my shoulder. The line behind me was crowding in like a pack of hungry wolves. I held my ground.

“How could I find out the instructions,” I asked. Subtext—if they didn’t know, who would?

Newspaper man grunted something I didn’t catch through the window and banker woman moved to a shelf filled with directories and bound volumes. The woman helping me just stared at the package like it held the secrets to the universe. By now, I had accepted that I would be late to work, but as the rustle behind me grew louder, I feared for my life.

As I stood there, glancing from silent employee to silent employee, I wondered if my question was being ignored, or if they were waiting to see how long it would take the other customers to devour my corpse. I was about to ask again when banker woman lugged a three-inch hardbound book over to the counter and let it drop with a thud. The ragged cloth binding alone classified the tome as an antique so the aged brown pages and the musty smell weren’t a surprise as the two women flipped it open.

“Here it is,” banker woman said, turning the book around so I could read the passage for myself. She read it aloud while I skimmed the words that meant nothing to me. What I needed to do was wrap the box in plain brown paper, tie it with string (she showed me the exact knot I needed), and seal it with sealing wax and a stamp. Sealing wax and a stamp! Okay. The French were sticklers for tradition so I bought this explanation much to the relief of the growling crowd.

That evening I rewrapped the box in brown paper and addressed it. I asked my husband, a Frenchman, where I could find sealing wax and a stamp and recounted my morning adventure. After telling me that he’d never heard of such a thing, he told me to try a Librairie, a small bookstore selling newspapers, magazines, and writing essentials.

Before work the next morning, I stopped at the Librairie near my office in the sixteenth arrondissement and asked for the sealing wax. A slight man with a few tufts of hair left on top looked across the counter with blank blue eyes. I figured my accent was the problem and quickly jotted the French words for sealing wax on a piece of paper, cire à cacheter. The man nodded his comprehension then glanced heavenward. I, too, looked up. Some of these shops are so jammed packed with merchandise that one never knows where things will be found, but alas, no sealing wax hanging from the rafters.

“Peut-être dans le sous sol,” he said. Maybe in the basement. “Attendez.”

The man disappeared down the dark, dank stairwell to search among his guillotine, body armor, and broad plated swords. Returning with a cobweb stuck to his sweater, he told me that he didn’t, in fact, have any wax and maybe I should try a Papeterie, a stationary store.

This sounded like an educated suggestion so during my lunch break I hunted down the nearest Papeterie and asked if they carried sealing wax. A serious looking woman with a stiff face called out to an unseen person in the back room. When a man appeared looking as serious as she, I repeated my question. Up until this point, I hadn’t felt ridiculous. My quest seemed legitimate, but the man’s expression of sympathetic patience withered my confidence. With hands pressed in prayer position, he explained that no one used sealing wax anymore. Boldly, I explained the postal situation and asked if he could direct me to someplace where I could find the wax.

As the bell hanging on the door quivered when I left, I wondered if it was possible that I was the only person in France who wanted to insure a package going overseas. Or better yet, had the post office played me for a fool, but I had seen the instructions printed in the book although said instructions may have been updated since 1913.

The following day, I tried again to find the wax, but it was starting to look like Christmas would arrive before I ever got the jacket in the mail. After work, I stopped at a huge Papeterie in a shopping mall. I asked for the rare wax, fully expecting a humorously raised eyebrow, a snide comment, or even a sullen—“don’t have it,” but to my surprise, the first salesclerk asked a second salesclerk who in turn asked a third salesclerk and lo and behold I’m being led through the aisles by two clerks speaking in rapid succession. At a far corner of the store reserved for gardening stickers and Origami paper, the two clerks dropped to their knees and started shifting through the bottom level drawers full of unsold calendars dating as far back as 1983.

The young woman with the unwashed hair popped up holding sticks of sealing wax in two stunning colors, red and blue. A miracle. I went for the million-dollar question.

“Would you by chance have a stamp for the wax?”

“Oui.” The young woman leaned back over the drawer and pulled out a box full of brass stamps each one with its own letter R, A, B, or D. None of these letters match my initials, or my daughter’s, or my husband’s, but who’s picky? I grabbed “D.” Delighted. By the time I paid for the stamp, the wax, and the string, I had spent the equivalent of forty US dollars, not to mention the gas I’d burned, running around. At this rate, I would pay for the jacket before it ever got mailed.

The following morning, forcing myself from a warm bed, wiping sleep from eyelids, I shuffled into the cold barren apartment to perform the dreaded deed. After the string was tied as I’d been shown, I tried to find the best method for melting the wax over the knot. On the first try, the angle of my lighter was all wrong, resulting in a Bic lighter covered with sealing wax and a slightly burned index finger. Refusing to resort to the medieval use of a candle, which I secretly suspected was the whole point of the ritual, I tore open a box of stick matches. Before the wax was sufficiently warm, the flame scorched my fingernails. I quickly lit another match, but the wax was again solid.

Not to be undone, I scoured the apartment for another lighter determined to find an angle that would melt the wax. This time I covered the lighter, my hand, the box, and basically everything in sight except the knot with wax. The wax stick was half gone. I threw the lighter to the floor and stomped off to the dining room for a candle.

Calmer, I lit the candle and started again. Candle wax dripped, mixing with the sealing wax, creating a gummy mess over the knot. I stamped it anyway. Finding the gum was more candle wax than sealing wax, it was easily broken apart by the stamp pressure. I blew out the candle and scraped the gum from the package with the side of the sealing wax stick. Two options remained: I could curse the French Postal Service and everything else French, or get creative. I got creative. I cursed too.

Retrieving the lighter from the floor, I flicked the flame on, then taped the lighter button open with electrical tape. I held the burning lighter from the bottom with a pair of pliers and held the remaining wax stick with a pair of cooking tongs thus saving my fingers and allowing more manipulation of the lighter. Placing the lighter and wax at opposite thirty-degree angles, I managed to get two, three, four drops of wax onto the knot. Blowing out the lighter, I slammed the brass stamp down on the wax before it cooled. A perfect “D.”

I reached the post office at eight a.m. Even though it was the original post office, at roughly the same hour as my previous visit the three clerks behind the Plexiglas windows were different. A complete change of personnel.

Straight-faced I explained to the new clerk that I wanted to insure the package to America. The woman looked me in the eyes and politely told me that it was impossible to insure packages to America. I laughed, even glanced around for a camera, but the woman didn’t so much as cut a smile. I explained what I had been told at this very post office, at this very window, at this very hour only four days earlier.

She, slowly, minding my accent, explained that the string and the sealing wax were necessary to insure a package sent inside France, but the postal service did not insure packages sent to America. I sucked in an enormous about of air, heard the snap of blood vessels in my head, and clenched my hands together on top of my package. Times like these, I’m glad I don’t own a gun.