DIY Timber Transport

What do you do when you purchase a 6 metre long plank of wood from Mitre 10, but don't want to have to pay $50 to have it delivered to your house, and you can't fit it in your car? Well you walk home with it of course! That's what we did last Wednesday when we went there to buy a plank of wood for our second basketball hoop (after the first one got blown over!).

Before we got there we had to deliver our newspapers and while I was walking down the road, I heard all these police car sirens and thought to myself that something big must be going on! When we got to Mitre 10, just as we parked in the carpark we heard on the radio that a car chase had taken place down the road we had just been travelling, with one guy in the car carrying a rifle! At that very moment about three police cars shot down the road, and not too soon after an ambulance went by! We soon found out that three people from that car were arrested, so that's all good!

Anyway we purchased our 6m plank of wood. The guy had to take it off the high shelf with a forklift, with a bit of difficulty. My dad jokingly asked him if he could get a straight one, so the guy was being very careful to pick a straight plank of wood with his forklift. Another Mitre 10 guy came over to help and asked him what he was doing, to which he replied

"He wants a straight one!"

After we paid for the plank, we were about to pick it up and go when the guy came over and asked how we planned to transport it. My dad told him that we were going to walk home with it, and he started laughing!

With Hamish at the front, Aonghas at the back, and me across the road filming with Aonghas' phone, we were off! It looked really weird, and it was funny especially when we crossed a bus stop. A little boy cried

"What the hell??! What's that for?"

I jokingly replied

"We're building a house"

I think he believed me! We got quite a few heads turning as well! We had to take pleny of breaks along the way home as it was quite tiring. We all took turns carrying the plank, and our dad, who was following with the car would often park it ahead of us and come back to help carry it.

One of the most embarrassing moments was when we were crossing at an intersection with this plank of wood and there was a group of Rutherford students, including Ben, this guy in our youth group!

What was even worse was when my dad, Hamish and Aonghas were crossing the road with the plank of wood and had to stop in the middle to wait for traffic. A police car was driving by and as soon as they saw them their lights started flashing and they stopped in the middle of the road, causing someone to honk their horn and cars to overtake the police car! I was a little down the road but managed to catch it on film! The conversation between the police and my dad and brothers went something like this:

"Where'd you guys get that from?"

"Mitre 10"

"Where are you taking it to?

"XXX Road."

"And you're going to walk it all the way there?"

"Yeah...$50 otherwise! Would you like to see the receipt?"

"Nah nah it's OK I believe you"

We didn't come across any more police after that fortunately, and after a couple of hours we finally got the plank of wood home!

Aonghas and my dad have been working on getting the basketball hoop up and finally put it up earlier today. It's been probably about a year since we last had a basketball hoop. That one was so low we could just about do slam dunks on it, so we've made sure this one is closer to the proper height.

What's funny is that a few days ago Aonghas had to drop off a video at Rutherford College and he had a quick conversation with the principal, who said he saw the Andersons do the plank walk! I can't imagine how many people would've seen us, especially since it was during peak hour traffic!