This year David, DM11, drew my name in the POS Roundtable. Although David has been a member here for about three years I don’t know him very well. I got a PM from him telling me he had mailed me two packages a day or two apart in the first one had been mailed on the 22nd.
My wife and I were gone most of last week while we had our hardwood floors refinished. We got home Friday and immediately had all of the nose hairs singed out of our nasal passages by the smell of the Swedish Finish that was applied to the hardwood floor. I went to the PO Box Sunday to get the mail and the first box was small and they had put it in my PO Box. When I got the mail out and saw the box I thought this could not possibly be related to the POS Roundtable because I didn't smell anything. And then I thought oh wait, the hardwood floor finish has probably removed my sense of smell at least temporarily. So I did something, in retrospect rather foolish; I got in my car and opened the package! For those of you who are new to the POS exchange I recommend you never opened the POS box/envelope in any enclosed space, especially not a car! It can be deadly!
But because my brain was still mush from two days of smelling hardwood floor finish I foolishly open the box in the car but I managed to dodge the bullet! No noxious green vapors rolled out of the box, no acrid fumes assaulted my abused nasal passages; instead in the box lay two beautiful Camillus Barlows! I opened the first one and it could have been fresh from the Camillus factory 20 years ago! It was absolutely gorgeous! I'm thinking to myself, David does not understand what a POS exchange is all about! I opened the second Barlow, and it had been used and someone had sharpen it badly, it had a little belly taken out of the blade. Nothing that could not have been straightened up and made into an outstanding user, just not a perfect mint Camillus Barlow.
Now I knew for sure that David did not understand what a POS Roundtable was all about! I knew I was going to have to gently break it to him that he had somehow missed the mark for POS Roundtables and teach him some of my finer points and techniques of how to rid ones shop and collection of those smelly little things that accumulate in the corners. I feel a tutorial a brewing!
While I waited for Monday to roll around
I began thinking of the pointers I would give David after opening the second box which would no doubt be at least as good as the first box.
Monday rolled around and I went to the post office and picked up THE BOX. The postal clerk made retching sounds as I left and the woman behind me was holding her nose. I thought that was particularly rude because I had just taken a shower that morning! My sense of smell still had not recovered from the Swedish Finish on the hardwood floor. Once I got into the car and shut the door I began to notice there actually was a rather foul odor emanating from the box. I rolled the windows down and quickly drove home, leaving the wretched smelling box on the front porch until I could deal with that that evening.
Monday evening rolled around and I went outside to feed the cat and retrieve the offending box. My wife's cat, named Jorge, was in the neighbors yard pretending like he was puking, Jorge always has been one for dramatics. There were two dead crows and a squirrel laying on the porch between the package and the cat's dish. I thought perhaps Jorge had enjoyed better than usual hunting that day but then I could see the crows were not actually dead they had just held their breath so long they passed out. The first time I've ever seen red-faced crows!
I got the box and walked into the house and as I walked into the family room and out to my shop my wife said, "Would you please go outside if you have gas?!" I had told her the package was coming and she is familiar with the annual POS ritual. I said, "It's not me hon, just the POS box." She said, in a loud near hysterical voice, "You shut that door real good and turn the fan on in that shop! Don't you come back in here until all of the odor is gone!" And just before and I got the door closed, a crochet hook came flying through the rapidly closing crack of the door at warp speed and stuck in the opposite wall of my shop. For some reason when my wife yells her hands seem to make throwing motions. I think it's a genetic disorder.
I went in the shop and after turning on all three vacuums I use for my dust collection system, turning on the air conditioner to blow fresh air and donning my respirator I opened the box. There, in its own little baggie was a very innocent looking Camillus number 53. I opened it up and noticed it had a little staining and it needed to be cleaned up, but it was nowhere near a POS! Now I was really worrying about David's comprehension of the term POS. Maybe he came from a retail background and thought POS meant point-of-sale?
Well, I would have to straighten him out in a private PM, no point in embarrassing the poor fellow in front of all the other forum members!
I look back in the box and there was another plastic bag with something in it...
The shocking thing was I recognized those smelly little POSs! They were POSs I had pulled out of my toil.., I mean culled from my herd last year! I sent POSs to David last year and here I was thinking I sent them to Glennbad..... of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most!
But you should note that I am NOT completely insane, I DID NOT open that last baggie!
When the smoke and stench had finally cleared and I stopped laughing, I went back into the house and told my wife that I had received knives that I had sent out in a previous POS Roundtable. My wife having somehow forgotten the previous stench chuckled and observed, "I have heard of regifting, but I've never heard of re-POSsing. There must be a law against it, it sounds terribly unsanitary!"
Well played David!
I will spare you my tutorial on how to do a proper POS exchange.
I will save it for some needy newbie just as soon as I add a new chapter on re-POSsing.
