Once upon a time, I had a serious nightmare with a freight company shipping something big to me. It involved seeing it for the first time tipped over on the pallet, questioning the driver about it, being talked into just accepting it and “dealing with the shipping company” later (which is the wrong approach, FYI). Well, that all ended well enough, but needless to say it tainted me when it came time to pursue getting a super-mega-awesome woodstove from the Woodstock Soapstone Company. This time around, the shipping was flawless, but it didn’t come to our house, it went to a trucking depot. So, Dad and I hopped in the Jeep (which just a few days before received a new motor due to woes that date back two years…) on a snowy Friday afternoon, racing to get to the landfill to empty the trailer full of crap-that-the-previous-owner-left-in-the-barn by the time they close, so we could then go to the depot and pick up this crate. Well, we didn’t die nor even go into the ditch, so all was good!
Not being the patient type, and not having a) the basement ready to receive this b) a way to back the trailer down a precarious hill through 1.5 feet of snow or c) telekinesis, I decided to just crack into the crate while it still sits on the trailer to make sure it arrived in good shape. It seems as though it did. In the not too distant future (though perhaps “next year”), we’ll be pumping out many BTUs of heat thanks to the ample supply of trees worthy of being Hanlonated–er, I mean, turned into firewood.