A Semi (Truck) Selfie...

We waited most of yesterday for a 18-wheeler full of shipping boxes to roll into the PJP Buttonwood parking lot and sadly, it never happened before we closed at 5:30.  We were a little righteously indignant this morning with expectations for boxes clouding all our judgment.  But around 9 am, we had a knock at the door and we both said right away, "BOXES".  And here was what was waiting in the back alley for us...

One of the guys was dismayed by the lack of a dock and asked in earnest about the availability of a forklift...and then he looked around at our space and looked at the two of us and realized a forklift seriously wasn't going to happen either.  But the need for a dock or a forklift piqued my interest and I really couldn't wait to see the back door of the truck slide open...

Honestly...a bit anti-climatic.  I don't know what I expected, but I guess a truck filled to capacity with our new shipping boxes.  For all the work that had gone into developing the boxes and having them custom cut just for PJP, one shrink-wrapped pallet seemed to belittle the work of this project.  And while I was thinking "hey, that's all?", the delivery guys were thinking "hey, this is a lot of boxes and we have to manually unload them because these people don't even have a forklift."

And let's just talk about these guys for a minute.  I don't know their names, nor do I know the company they work for (or maybe they own it), but here is the truth...they unwrapped the pallet and carried all the bundles of boxes into PJP for us simply because they are super nice.  They could have chucked our pallet into the alley, jumped back in the cab of the truck, and rolled on out.  But they didn't and WE SO APPRECIATE IT.

And after all of the boxes were kindly stacked inside our doors, Jeanne offered a proposal.  In exchange for a baby pie, could we perhaps climb up in the cab of the semi-truck and take a ridiculous amount of selfies and blow the horn?  And thankfully for us, free pie is an excellent motivator because the head guy basically said we could just drive off with the truck in exchange for a free nine-inch pie.

And so really this is just a long story about how Jeanne and I both crossed off a Bucket List item...sit in the cab of a semi-truck.  And after 20 selfies and a lot of "hey, what does this button do?" questions, the truck owner pointed me to the cord for the horn and I didn't hesitate to pull on it for longer than likely socially acceptable, announcing the PJP arrival to the neighborhood.  (Or perhaps some slight retribution for the seven hour a day hammering next door in the construction zone.  Ahem.)  And then a post-horn-blowing selfie:

We said our goodbyes and headed back in to our boxes.  And for all the worry we had about where to store them, we quickly found a home that promises to work well (as long as we don't have any seismic events).

So, if you are in the market to ship some pies...we have the boxes.  And the pies.