9,000 Mile Delivery … That’s Our Federal Spending

At Sister’s House in Citrus Heights, Ca

Dad’s Hoveround sprung a flat tire.  Living in a Independent Living Facility, it is a long ways to the dining hall…and if you want to go to Walmart or CVS, which are across the street, one who is 90 years old needs an electric device in order to do this.  Wednesday night of last week he called to tell me to say that his Hoveround had a flat tire.  I went over on Thursday and took the wheel off, and Arny and I determined that the tire tube could not be repaired, it needed a new tube.  Two flats ago Arny found one eventually, but the last time it had a flat, same tire as this, Arny patched it.  Well, it sprung another leak, the tube just needs to be replaced.  A local ADA (Disability Assistance Store) could get a tube for like $30.  Amazon could get us two tubes for $10 plus change…but it would take 6 days to arrive.  Not a Amazon Prime item, but it was free shipping.

When I placed the order on Thursday night (the 5th), they promised it would be here by Wednesday (the 11th), yesterday.  So on Friday when I saw it was accepted at the Post Office in Fountainville, I knew things were on the way…good deal, and especially when I saw it arrived at the Philadelphia Distribution Center less than 90 minutes later.  However, when I saw 24 hours later that it was in Honolulu Hawaii…well, I knew we were in trouble.  As you follow the package route above, you can see that they say it left Honolulu on the 9th…but it did not get to Sacramento until the 11th.  Now on the morning of the 11th, before they posted that it was in Sacramento, I contacted the Amazon Vendor and asked them to look into the matter….after all, Dad needed his Hoveround!  (Well, actually, I took Marcia’s GoGo over there, which is just like mom’s, so dad had transportation, but the Hoveround is so much easier for him to get into and out of with his bad back.)

So, the Hoveround tire tube needed to travel a distance of 2444 nautical miles from Philadelphia to Citrus Heights.  Instead, it traveled 9,194 miles from Philadelphia, to Honolulu to Citrus Heights…assuming that the ‘PIGEON’ they used to carry it flew directly to each location and not through places like New York or Chicago on the way to Honolulu, or to Los Angeles or Seattle coming back from Honolulu to Citrus Heights.  Heck, I have never been to Honolulu, but Dad’s Hoveround Tire Tube has!

Here is the tire taken apart sitting on one of Arny’s work benches.  The tube to the right is the old tube…the new tube is on the box above and to the left a bit.  The hub is in two parts, and it all goes inside that grey tire to the left.

    

Above you can see how the hub fits, once the tire is put in place.  For such a small wheel, you would think this would be an easy job for one person…but in reality it much easier if there are two people, one to hold things in place while the other works on putting it together.  I was the holder, Arny the putter together man.

    

Above Arny gets the new tube in place, gets the two parts of the hub in place, and from there I am needed to help hold it as he airs up the tube, puts on the bolts, and airs up the tube to 50 pounds. 

I went back over to mom and dad’s, and put the tire on the Hoveround … all is good.  That was our 9,000+ mile fix job…all for a $5 tire tube…one must wonder just how much that delivery job cost the USPS…