So getting boxes at a shop like mine is indicative of a couple of things...
New merchandise for your customers
Inventory and tagging
and last but certainly never least...
Lots an assault of styrofoam and packing tape
Watching the new Fedex guy trot up the steps to the front door and leave the third box outside on the porch I'm thinking about putting a sign up to tell all delivery people to Please use the side door while I frantically measure the space between the checkout counter and wall against the size of the boxes piling up.
Yea. Never going to happen.
Issue number one.
I try to explain in a courteous manner the very limited walking space at the front of the shop [ask me how many times I have nearly knocked myself out in that tiny walkway between counter and wall...never mind, don't ask...the answer would be embarrassing.] as I'm signing his electronic scanner with a stub of plastic that was clearly not designed as a writing instrument. And then I drag the boxes inside.
Issue number two.
"...I know! I'll turn him into a flea and put that flea in a box and I'll put that box in another box and mail it to myself!..."...Emperor's New Groove
So what I have today are two lamps.
Two lamps.
In five boxes.
Inside five other boxes.
Inside tombs of compacted styrofoam.
The kind of styrofoam that looks hard as a brick but one touch of the human hand and it dissipates into a zillion tiny....clinging...bits of fluff. The more you shake and twitch and try to rub the stuff off the more zealously it clings. It's like some freak of nature, only there's nothing natural about it.
In addition to the boxes in boxes and foam from Hades I also have what I can only guesstimate as 400 miles of packing tape.
After wrestling [literally] with the two largest box in box atrocities I have finally unearthed the actual lamp bases...
The shades are boxed duplicate-ly but without [pause for giving of thanks] styrofoam. The fifth box is full of nothing but the harps that attach to the lamps and holds the shades in place. Was a fifth box necessary? Now they are just toying with me....
As the flurry of styro-dust begins to settle and my finger has quit bleeding from a massive cardboard cut [ok, massive may be slightly overstated]...I smile.
Oh yes, these were worth it. Worth haggling with the sales rep at Market during the last hour of the last day there, convincing them that it was a good idea to lower their minimum and send me just two custom lamps and shades from their fabu collection.
And yes, even worth the struggle and subsequent mess to get them unpacked today.
I know exactly where they are going, carefully wiping the bases clean and settling the shades on the harps. Now oblivious to the disaster piled in the tiny entryway of the shop, re-arranging things to put them in their new homes....I think I may have been humming...
Maybe. Maybe that is why I totally miss the UPS truck pulling up to the front door and piling his four big boxes on the porch? :|
Oh well. The up side is that there are a few new things in the shop today and that's a good thing. It also reminds me of how often times getting to know someone in your life can be kind of like unpacking boxes in boxes in boxes in layers of touch-combustible foam and miles of packing tape....hard work, frustrating to break through and at times just a big mess...but in the end, well worth the effort.
xo ya'll