Awaiting Passports from Canadian Consulate

Hi
I am new to this forum. I needed your opinion.
I have applied for canadian transit visa on 28th April 2011. I have applied for myself and my family. I sent them the passports and the application forms by USPS Express mail service (it is a next day delivery from Boston to New York). I received a confirmation that the package has been delivered.
After I read the reviews in this forum, I started getting nervous as my travel date to India is on May 17th. It makes me more nervous as I did not send prepaid express envelop when I posted the documents to Canadian Consulate at Buffalo, New York. Canadian website tells that usual processing time for TRV visa is 7 days. So, I thought that, I would receive my passports well before May 17 (which is my India travel date from Boston). But, it appears this may not be the case. It might take months!

At this point, could you advise me if would it make sense to me to directly travel to Buffalo and collect the passports by hand? Would the consulate even give me my passports by hand? Buffalo is about 7 hours drive from Boston which at this point may be worth going there (than getting tensed sitting at Boston) in Person and collect the passports. Any suggestions for me in this regard would be a great help. I would really appreciate it and thanks in advance for your time and help!
my email id is t_elisha @ yahoo.com

Thanks,
Elisha