(Posted by Mark)

Order by August 15th, and it will be here by Valentine's Day. Maybe. And so begins the saga of the dehumidifier.

In the rank order of appliances, dehumidifier ranks second only to air conditioner on Kwajalein. In much of the housing here (ours included), the air conditioner does a good job of cooling the air, but it doesn't have the power to remove a sufficient amount of the moisture. As a result, the indoor environment can become quite a haven for mold if proactive measures are not taken.

Prior to moving to Kwajalein, we were wisely advised to bring along a dehumidifier for just this purpose. So, a DeLonghi 50-pint dehumidifier from Costco was one of several purchases we threw, unopened, onto the moving truck before leaving Boston, hoping it would arrive in working order. Fortunately, it did. This lovely appliance has been running nonstop since our arrival. It has a slight design flaw, though, that causes the tank to overflow without warning if the air filter is not faithfully cleaned. We are faithful cleaners now. It even has a pump to empty the  collection reservoir for you. Great. A machine that pulls moisture from the air and dumps it down the drain for you. Who could want anything more. In fact, we were so happy with our purchase that we decided to order another one for the upstairs.

Shopping on Kwajalein, though, is a mixed bag. If you're looking for paintings, Waterford crystal, or replacement parts that don't fit the bicycles sold here, then you're in luck. Unfortunately, if you're looking for an ice cube tray, a blender, or replacement bags for the vacuum cleaners sold here, then you'll need to look elsewhere. Sadly, a dehumidifier falls into this latter category. Wanting to repeat our successful dehumidifier purchase, we turned to the internet.

I suppose we really are fortunate to have the option of internet shopping nowadays. It's difficult to imagine how people coped before even telephone service was widely available here. Unless, you've lived somewhere not serviced by FedEx, DHL, or UPS, though, you probably don't realize how difficult it is to find an online seller that ships via the US Postal Service, our only shipping option. Costco, like many online retailers, has struck a deal with one of the big parcel carriers and uses it exclusively for shipments from their website--no USPS and no shipments to Kwajalein.

We have spent countless hours navigating websites to search for the elusive ones that say "we ship to APO/FPO addresses." Most sites are not kind enough to put that message up front, and it's not until after you fill out the shipping forms that you find out a site won't ship to you. We have now formed lists of sites that are "good" or "bad" for shopping. This Apple fan is sad to report that the Apple store did not make the "good" list. It's bad enough that Apple won't ship me an iPod or a Mac Mini, but I would expect to be able to purchase an electronic gift card for iTunes. No luck. Sadly, the company known for it's intuitive user interfaces won't sell us an electronic gift card since the address on our credit card is a PO box. That's right, they won't EMAIL you an electronic gift card because they don't "ship" to PO boxes. Not very intuitive.

We have also uncovered some inconsistencies. Wal-Mart, for example, is one of our favorite sites to use since their shipping costs are usually so favorable. We purchased a small flat panel TV, and the shipping costs were comparable to what the tax would have been in the States. Great! Let's add Wal-Mart to the "good" list. But wait! Later, we were surprised to find that their photo center can't ship us a personalized calendar because they "don't ship to PO boxes." So, let's see... there's no problem shipping a medium-sized electronic item, but they can't ship us 12 pieces of paper in an envelope. Hmmm.......

Anyway, back to our dehumidifier. We ended up using ShipItAPO, a freight forwarder, to make our purchase. Costco ships it via UPS to ShipItAPO in California, where it is carried to the post office to be mailed to us. After three short weeks of waiting, we were the proud owners of a second dehumidifier....that unfortunately didn't work. Comparing our new device to the working one, we found that it is missing a small plastic piece to close a switch telling the machine that the water basin is not full. Unfortunately, the manufacturer won't send us the part, which probably only costs $5, since it is considered to be "internal" to the machine.

This is when being 2200 miles from the nearest Costco is rather inconvenient. At this point it was very tempting to wire the switch in the "correct" position since we were going to be using the pump and the reservoir would never fill--in theory. Visions of the reservoir overflowing kept me from taking this step. After all, a machine that simply transfers moisture from the air directly to your carpet isn't all that useful. The mold spores would disagree.

I thought to myself that it would most likely be two months before we would get it back from a repair shop. Boy, was I naively optimistic. To make the long part of this story short: We did send the dehumidifier in for warranty repair to the nearest repair shop (Honolulu). After several months waiting for the replacement part in Honolulu, DeLonghi finally decided to send us a new dehumidifier. It's coming from a warehouse in Ohio. Only three more weeks of waiting.... not before Valentine's Day.... but maybe by St. Patrick's Day....