Because I live outside an isolated little village far away from other centers, shipping and getting things from outside the area is always a major problem. Weeks ago I noticed that Costco Online was having a sale on utility trailers, something I have been wanting for a while. When I noticed on the ad that there was “Free Delivery,” I couldn’t pass the offer up, so I ordered it.
Then began a period of unease for me when I started to think about how it would be delivered. This was a fair sized trailer, 5 feet (1.5m) wide and 8 ft, (2.4m) long, and it was made of steel so it would be a pretty heavy item to deal with. From past experience I knew that the big truck that generally delivers things to the Robson Valley couldn’t get down my driveway, so if it parked up on the road, I had to figure out some way to get the boxes containing the trailer down to my carport myself.
I assumed it would come in several boxes and decided I could probably just load the boxes into the back of my small pickup truck then just drive down the driveway and unload it. Okay, that is the way I would do it.
Then yesterday I got a call from the freight company, who were about to deliver the trailer and was approaching McBride. He asked me a question that threw my whole theory of how I would get it down the driveway into doubt. He inquired, “Your heavy parcel (450 lbs, 204 kg) is on a long pallet, do you have a forklift to unload it?”
“Yikes, a forklift?” I thought to myself, “What would I do?”
Fortunately, the trucker had a suggestion. He suggested that he deliver it to the local hardware store and they could unload it with their forklift.
That would solve his problem, but what about mine? Then a thought of a solution. The trailer pallet could be unloaded at the hardware store, then I could probably pay the hardware store to deliver the thing to my house (their truck is smaller than the shippers, and it could get down my driveway) but that still left the problem of getting the 450 pound box off of their truck and into my carport where I could assemble the trailer.
Hans at the hardware store suggested that once he got it to my house, we just rip open the box and hand-lift all the pieces individually to the carport. His idea worked and as you can see in the photo there all of the pieces of the trailer sit, waiting for me to put it together.
I am always surprised at how we eventually find some kind of solution to those problems that often seem unsolvable.
You can see my paintings: davidmarchant.ca
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