THE DAY THE THE MYSTERY PACKAGE ARRIVIED

An exciting day, today. My wife went to the post office and found a package addressed to Heirloom Woodshop, (one of my businesses). I hadn’t ordered anything lately other than a book and this package was not the appropriate size and was way to heavy. My wife and I looked at it and wondered what it could be. After a long time of feeling its’ weight and trying to determine what it might be, we were suspicious of its’ contents because of years gone by when packages show up and all kinds of horrendous problems occurred for the people who received them. We listened to see if there was any ticking… none, and it didn’t smell funny. What should we do,.. open it? Call the authorities? I decided to open it, but I also thought of calling my neighbours, just in case they wanted to evacuate, then I fashioned a kind of plywood suit with a small slot to look through and a plywood kind of vest. All I had for hand protection were a couple oven mitts. All right, then I had my wife gather the dog, cat and bird and head outside to the other end of our property. Now I proceeded very slowly, trying to hold up my homemade armour and had trouble opening the package with two oven mitts on, as the sweat rolled of my forehead. If I find wires, do I quit or like in the old movie scenario, wonder if the blue or the red wire get clipped first? My next thought was, I don’t have any thing close by to clip the wires. If I bite the wires, would that cause a reaction? It’s been 5 minutes already with not much progress…I could have sped things up if I had grabbed a knife or scissors before I started, but all I could come up with was a near-by spoon. Finally more progress.. the paper is finally loose on one end. I hold my breath, so as to not wiggle it any more than possible. More progress.. it looks like carpet pad is in the next layer. Why would something that seemed so solid, need padding? I tear more open v e r y slowly. I see a black substance… is it some kind of plastic or worse? It’s coming.. it’s coming off! WHAT IS IT?? It’s wood?! Thank God it’s only wood, but what, where, from whom? There’s a note: “Jim, Enjoy!”, and thanks for being such a good Bud! and signed, “David” !

It’s from one of the nicest guys on LJ’s, “Pattron”, or, David Mitchell. After we’d had a little visit, when we PM’ed, he said he was then off to go pick up his rosewood that he had ordered and had a long drive to and from, to get it. I mentioned that I had wanted to buy some also, but things had been slow this year, so I had to pass, but I was glad that he was able to get some. So here this kind, wonderful person finds my address, packs a very nice piece of rosewood off to me without a word and it shows up today, when I had an unexpected day at home.

David, THANK YOU SO MUCH!... you’re a king among men. I will have to find a very special use for this rosewood.

Oh and everyone, please excuse my “story” about the whole episode. Now you know I can spin tall tales!

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/