i’d been feeling so overwhelmed lately that i forgot to mention the flooring delivery disaster i dealt with the week before thanksgiving…
so, we were expecting a delivery of wood flooring from fedex freight. they scheduled a 3 hour window with me and didn’t show up till the very last minute as the sun was setting. so, it was late and cold and the truck was as big as a house. our wood was the very last delivery so it was jammed into the opposite end of the truck and difficult to remove. it was also a huge pile of wood but fred the fedex guy was patient and managed to get it out of the truck and onto the ground in one piece. both of us thought it was a lot of wood but the delivery schedule listed our name, address and shipment of 1100 pounds of red oak flooring so we didn’t question it.
fred tried to push it up the driveway into the garage but the slope was too extreme for the weight of the wood. so we took the package apart and fred wheeled all 50+ boxes of wood into the garage on a hand truck. i did what i could to help load and unload the hand truck. when the work was done it was very dark and we were glad it was over.
when mathew came home he said it was the wrong wood and about 3 times too much of it. then fred called and said it was the wrong shipment. we had received over 3000 pounds of maple flooring.
the next day robert the fedex guy showed up with another giant truck and a smaller pile of wood, but no lift gate to get it out of the truck, which is about 4 feet off the ground. i asked him if he would be taking the incorrect shipment out of our garage first and he didn’t know what i was talking about. i just about cried right there on the street. after begging me not to cry and a long conversation with a dispatcher he decided to leave the correct shipment and fred would return to pick up the incorrect wood later that day. of course because he didn’t have a lift gate he had to load and unload the wood (not in boxes this time) onto a hand truck and stack it in the garage. fred arrived after dark and so did mathew and together they packed up the incorrect shipment to send it on its way.
i’m not sure if you’re really feeling my pain, it hadn’t started out as the most relaxing week and my work was already suffering. luckily the fedex guys were super sweet (as all delivery guys seem to be.) they could have (should have) left the deliveries on the sidewalk but they did whatever they could to make life easier for me. robert even gave me a pep talk about not skipping thanksgiving and told me i could purchase entire thanksgiving meals from whole foods or bi-rite if necessary. in the end i’m glad i didn’t skip thanksgiving, it turned out to be a really nice day with family. and now we have quarter sawn red oak for the downstairs living room and hall/entry.
(left) this is half of the flooring in the garage and (right) half of it in the downstairs living room getting acclimatized to its new environment. i wish i had taken photos of the monster pile of maple, but at the time it just wasn’t funny; i couldn’t look at it.