ToooooePiiiick

There are days (like today) when I feel somewhat like a submarine commander.

You may wonder what in the hell I'm talking about, and you're right to. Well, one of the things that a sub commander needs to do is find a 'firing solution' for an enemy target.

Now, I can hear you ask what in my day could possibly requrire me to calculate the destruction of a ship, and to that question, I reply :Not a fucking thing.

But, I do have to figure 'shipping solutions.'

Today, for instance I had to find a way to package and ship 33 lbs of rubber concrete stamps. Yes, that's right. We got a payment of $227.50 for those stamps that weren't going to sell.

Well, that's all well and good, but finding a way to make them UPS friendly was not easy.

First, as they are made of rubber, they're flexible. Quite flexible in fact. I solved that problem with saran wrap. No, not the kind you buy to cover the pie you're taking to your sister's house, but the kind on a roller handle that we use to wrap things like Xboxes to the games/controllers/accessories that you brought in with you.

Second, as I mentioned, they're fucking heavy.

Third, they're like 2 feet by 2 feet square, and only like 3 inches tall for the whole stack.

Believe me when I tell you, this can be a thorny problem.

How, you may ask, did I solve this dilemma? I'm glad you asked.

I fell back on a talent I call 'Frankenboxing.' Since you're going to ask anyhow, I'll go ahead and tell you what that is. I used 2 UPS priority boxes (turned inside out) to form the main part of the box, and the fit was just about perfect. The problem was, the ends of the stamps were still exposed. This is where the real talent comes in.

Using a couple more of the boxes and a utility knife, I fashioned 4 corners that I then taped to the ends of the box, covering up the holes. It sounds a little complicated, and I'm not sure I got the idea across, but just know that when I was done, the stamps were securely packaged. And I only used like half a roll of shipping tape to make it so.

Oh, by the way, for those of you keeping score, Pops decided that we should go gamble a bit tonight, and I hit a 6-spot with 2 nickles in, and cashed out $160.00

Yeah, it was a pretty good day, all in all.

Buenos con queso,

T.