Waiting for bricks

After a 14 hour drive (saw nine moose) I have arrived in Conche. I have to thank Dave and Tracy for getting me here in one piece. The last twenty kilometres over foggy, moose infested dirt road were particularly stressful. But here I am and everything is OK.

Well, almost everything. You see, my bricks still have not arrived here. This is the beginning of a long story, but I might as well get into it since I really don't have a lot else to do. I bought these bricks (500 low grade fire brick) from Ornamental Concrete on Kenmount Road. The price was good and they were exactly what I was looking for - in fact I was amazed that the purchasing process went so smoothly. For the record, I was concerned about the shipping right from the beginning, but Bill at Ornamental Concrete called Day and Ross himself where they quoted the price of $440 for shipping them right to Paul Bromley's door.

So when the bricks arrived in St. John's from Halifax (the fact they'd have to go back 600km in the same direction to get as far as Deer Lake before heading up the Northern Peninsula was an irony not lost on me) I asked Bill to hold onto them for a couple weeks so they wouldn't be taking up space at Paul's house until I got there. They agreed to ship them around the 15th so they'd be here waiting for me when I arrived on the 26th.

Flash forward a few weeks and I, having moved on to more pressing matters, assumed everything had went as smoothly as promised. I called Paul to tell him to expect the bricks two Fridays ago, but as he was out fishing I had trouble getting through to him. Eventually I talked to his sister-in-law who told me the bricks never arrived. Apparently Day and Ross decided they didn't want to ship to Conche. This was after they decided to take my money and tell me they would ship them, and before they decided they would not contact me about changing their shipping plans. Now that is some poor business practice.

So the bricks went back to Kenmount Road where they waited for me to call and make a big stink. I think Bill went to bat for me on this one - he called Day and Ross and got back to me saying they would be shipped on Wednesday past. It's now Saturday, and I expected them to arrive yesterday, but they are not here. So I'm sitting here in Conche, practicing my existentialism and waiting for bricks.