Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: art fair

Okay, so here’s a little story for you… bear with me…

Think back to Friday morning… as I was trying to pull together some art fair packing
before I needed to rush off to Summer Camp. I was down in my storage room pulling
out my booth shelves… counting to make sure I had enough to create my usual
booth layout. Number of shelves – check. Number of corners – check. Number of
semi-circle tables – check. Number of uprights – check. Number of corner posts… ONE?!
Uh oh… I need TWO to set up my booth. Two posts… not just one!

Of course, as I was now running late for Summer Camp and starting to panic,
I scanned the storage room quickly but found it nowhere. I know we’ve had a lot of
service people in the building doing some plumbing, construction and door installation.
Now I don’t want to blame anyone, but of course I feared that one of them may have taken
the post and “re-purposed it” for some other project. And now I’m out of luck.

Knowing that I had to get to Summer Camp, and knowing that I had to pack-up and
start setting up my art fair booth immediately after camp – there wasn’t much time to
resolve my dilemma. So I sent out a quick e-mail to people in my building who may have
had access, or responsible for any of the service people, to see if any of them had seen
the missing corner post. Of course, no one did. And of course… it is also quite likely that
I could have left it anywhere… at the last art fair, leaning against a tree somewhere, etc.
I wasn’t blaming anyone… I just needed to find the corner post!!! I needed it for the art fair!!!

I got to camp and was a little distracted at first – still worried about the corner post.
Still not sure what I was going to do… I guess some how rearrange the layout and somehow
jerry-rig the “corner” with two sets of shelves bungee corded together or something?!

But then… about a half hour into camp… my next door neighbor Melanie called.
She didn’t know where the post was, but the did have their construction guys there
for their bathroom remodel… and they were willing to make me a brand new post!!!
So that when I got home from camp it would be done and waiting for me – and good to go
to the art fair! Can you imaging that? What service… and what great neighbors!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Mia & Melanie!!!

When I got home from camp about 1:30pm… there it was… a brand new post
that was the same as the original post. They even drilled the holes for my shelving pegs
in the right places. And oh, but wait there’s more… they even stained it for me!!!

We tested it and then packed it into the van with everything else.
In the park, it worked just fine… and my near-disaster & Friday morning stress was gone.
All was right in the world… and my booth actually had BOTH sets of corner shelves!

I came home late Friday night after setting up and having dinner with my parents.
The art fair Saturday was great – and my new corner post worked just fine.
I got home late again Saturday night after the art fair… and another dinner with Mom & Dad.

When I got up this morning to go back to the art fair, I gathered my stuff and headed out
the back door of my condo… uh oh… there’s something in the way outside the door?!
Of course I think it is more construction stuff as our back porch has been a nightmare
for the past few months as Mia & Melanie are having their bathroom remodeled –
and everything is all over the back deck. So I opened the door carefully, hoping not to knock
anything over… and found out that somehow overnight the missing corner post was set
against my kitchen door. No note. No explanation. And will probably never know…

Glad to have it back… but still questioning where it was, who had it and who found it?!
And that’s my “Corner Post Mystery”… it all worked out fine, but still a bit strange!

2 Comments

C. Yalater

August 9th, 2010

Hmmmm. Unless you give REALLY good descriptions over the phone, I wonder how the new post replaced the old one so well? Holes the right size, and in the right places and everything. What a coinkeydink! And how did the post-finder know where to return the original post?

August 9th, 2010

Well, I still had the one (and only one) original post that was where it was supposed to be in the basement! So my neighbors’ contractors had an actual post to copy. And luckily, I have the holes that we use at the fairs marked so they knew which holes to put in. As for the “post-finder”… I found that interesting too! I only sent my morning panic e-mail out to a few people. But if you had “borrowed” it and didn’t want to get busted, wouldn’t you hide it back in the basement where you found it instead of bringing it all the way up the back stairs to my 3rd floor kitchen door after 10:00pm on a Saturday night?!

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