My 'other' Fuku shipment -or- why the FedEx guy now hates me...
17So, after several days of my delivery being postponed, FedEx finally gets around to delivering my 'other thing' around 6:45 pm last night. I was out for the evening with a friend when I saw the email alert so I sent off a text to the sig other, asking her to please bring in the box. Mind you, the tracking had no size for the box and stated 10 lbs. This is what she sent back, along with the comment that she had to go out through the garage to deal with it:
I replied letting her know I'd take care of it when I got home, which was around 11 pm. This is what I came home to. She had covered it with an old shower liner (off to the side now), trying to keep it dry although it was already under the front door overhang. 
At this point the box has been pretty well trashed. Between the rain and the abuse it obviously took along it's travels, there was no easy place to grab it. I pulled it away from the door, opened the storm door and more or less heaved it inside. Uhh, 10 lbs? Don't think so... I believe I may have broke the record for heaviest 'other thing' at this point. My first impression was that it was easily 100 lbs. I'm sending you guys my medical bills! I already have a slowly healing herniated disc along with having strained something else in my back the other day. This is not exactly what I needed at the moment. So it made it inside, here's what it looked like:
I cut through the tape, rip the box open and find this:
Alright, let's get the basics out of the way. There were some elements of Fuku #2 again. The mandatory Fuku red bag, another talking cow mug (awesome, they can have a conversation with each other), and another Trip Glasses. 
There were six crappy plastic monkey toys that may be almost too embarrassing to dump in a Toys for Tots bin.
And what could have been a very cool 'Aliens Wall Relief' that was sadly an obvious return as it was taped up and it's arm is busted off. I'll still see if I can glue it back together...
Let's move on to what you know you saw in there. What time is it?
Oh yeah, it's most definitely mother effing PB n' J time.
Now I admit, I thought these were kind of cute when so many people previously received them. I was perfectly fine with not getting one but would've been pleased had I found one in my other Fuku. I found a a couple of boxes and started pulling them out while counting them. If you could have only seen the mixture of shaking my head and laughing at the entire experience. I do believe there is no more stock of these in the meh warehouse.
(Most of them removed.)
Go ahead, take a guess as to how many were in there... I asked the gf who started at 100. "Uh, higher." 150? "Higher" 400? "Don't be ridiculous." 275? "Damn, almost nailed it." 276 of them. Two hundred and seventy six PB n' J spreaders. Wow. So a quick Amazon search has them selling for $5.22 each. That's $1440.72 worth of spreaders at retail. At this point it was running through my mind, I could give away a slew of these and sell the rest. Could I sell them to someone who does flea markets for a few bucks each? Could I go to a local dollar store and sell them for a huge discount? Could I put them on eBay? I'm undecided as of now, but there's a potential to make at least a few hundred bucks here. In doing some quick weight calculations, just the spreaders came out to about 55 lbs.
But we're not done. Toilet paper. Really? Is this supposed to go 'hand in hand' with my expected woot box of crap? The package was open and I didn't count, but I'd say there were at least 45 of the 48 rolls in there. The weight was starting to make sense as these rolls are surprisingly heavy. 6.78 oz per roll comes to just over 19 lbs of butt paper.
I have to say, I'm kind of preferential when it comes to my toilet paper. This just isn't going to work for my own personal comfort. But, the gf apparently doesn't care and is now fully stocked with tp for at least the next two years.
Finally, the last big box in there. I pull it out with high hopes! Hmm, what's this? Oh, cool!
A Muskoka 35" Curved Wall Mount Electric Fireplace w/ Led Flame Effect. Found it on Amazon with the price bouncing around $248. This could be pretty awesome! Though, uh, there seems to be an awful lot of rattling around in there. I open it to find it was an obvious return. The glass front is in one piece, but everything else is just bouncing around. The little 'logs' are just destroyed. Sigh...
Just wondering guys (@JonT?) does anyone have any idea what the story is with this thing? I'm hesitating to even put together what I have and plug it in in fear of this: cb20130528190013/creepypasta/images/0/05/House-on-fire-o.gif">
Oh, Amazon's shipping weight? 36.2 lbs So the three main items come out to about 110 lbs. Overall, the entire box and contents are probably closer to 115 lbs. Which of course is why I'm pretty damn sure that the FedEx guy now hates me...
- 16 comments, 65 replies
- Comment
Wow, that's one hell of a delivery. What is the origin of this "other thing"?
@JTrilogy See the official Fukubukuro thread and look for the 'letters' that some of us received. https://meh.com/forum/topics/official-fukubukuro-3-reveal-thread
@Cinoclav I love purple.
Note - Imgur is having issues with some of the pictures. I'll upload them to another site and post them again.
The other pics... The Alien Wall Relief, monkey toys, the PN n' J Spreader, two boxes of spreaders, the box almost emptied of spreaders, toilet paper, the inside of the Fireplace box with the busted up 'logs.' There are more pieces in there, but you get the idea.
@Cinoclav that's an incredible haul. Congrats!
My wife is totally jealous of your PB&J spreaders. Want to trade some mock security cameras for a few of those?
@capguncowboy Ha! No need for the "cameras", but I'll keep you in mind once I figure out the best and cheapest way to ship these things.
And that burning house gif... Wtf is up with the images today? Grr!
@Cinoclav damnit @lisaviolet
@TaRDy Everyone! Move outta the way!
That is totally awesome. I hope to one day be the recipient of one of the 'other' shipments, just to experience the bewilderment of everyone who's gotten one.
@dashcloud Yes, "bewilderment." Let's just go with that.
Congrats! Very cool, now everyone in your family and your gf's family will have the proper tool to make pb&j sandwiches!
@tinkertime Everybody on my block and their familes might have the proper tool to do so...
The FedEx guy shouldn't hate you, he should hate the sender... if he/she is capable of logic.
@hallmike I'm not counting on that. He's the guy hauling big ass boxes around, not sitting in the office enjoying his catered lunch. Not to mention, he likely blames all the customers for what they ordered, having no idea I didn't order any of this stuff!
What I don't understand is why waste money sending us broken stuff ? Why not just throw it out? Why send it along so that we just throw it out? It doesn't make sense to me. Is the point to make us have our hopes up and then have them dashed when we find out the item is trashed? Joy in being sadistic? Or???
@Kidsandliz I've often wondered that myself. If I really wanted to be dishonest I could order a new Fireplace then claim I was sent a used one and return it. But that would be rather uncool. Though uh, it did cross my mind.
@Kidsandliz Why? Because broken stuff can be repaired. The fake log is cosmetic, so I can't see why it won't still function nicely as a heater without it. With it broken, though, it can't be sold as complete, hence someone gets it in their Fuku. In this case, it's @cinoclav that's the lucky recipient.
@narfcake @cinoclav I understand something could be repaired, but I, for example, got a broken Sony dream machine in the Fuku prior to this one and repairing that is not quite the same thing (expensive and not otherwise functional anyway). Mine had no stickers on it at all (most people's photos it had assorted stickers on the speaker grill you'd expect with new or refurbished) and was obviously used. It was a fuku so meh isn't obligated to do anything. In the condition it was in I doubt Sony would have either - especially without a receipt. I was also sent a broken stadium seat. That would only be fixable if you could find the missing part (the joint was busted off and gone). Yeah it sort of worked with the straps, but not very well. Canvas was new so obviously damaged in transit. If they sell them here one day they actually look rather nice, provided you don't have a huge butt and the folding joint that locks the back into place isn't broken off. It just seems to me that some stuff is better off in the trash or freecycle it (or craigslist free) disclosing how it is broken.
@Kidsandliz From what I've seen, I don't think meh knows whether a said item is functional or not either. It's likely that among the items obtained via a liquidator is a pallet of various customer returns, hence the randomness of everything. Sometimes, nothing is wrong with the item at all (changed mind, wrong color, bought the wrong model, etc.) and it's a hit; sometimes it's broken and a miss. They operated that way with old BOCs at Woot, and that continues here too.
@narfcake That is probably the case for some stuff but other stuff is obviously broken and sending that off anyway meh apparently finds funny - or at least they have decided it is OK in the name of who knows what to waste money on mailing broken crap. I don't happen to understand why one would do that. Just throw the trash out and don't send it to me to throw out. Not to mention with the fireplace/heater in question it may well be dangerous even if "fixed". When meh sent me my missing fuku bag (and I appreciated they did that and did it relatively quickly) they threw in a large broken item and a note saying they hoped that item would "make up" for their oversight. Huh? Why would I want to get a broken item that can't be fixed?
@Kidsandliz I have a simple solution for you, then: DON'T buy a Fuku, a BOC, or whatever if you have any expectations of anything of value. If you're going to complain about receiving shit, then don't buy the shit in the first place! @cinoclav's $250 heater has a broken cosmetic log; how's that going to burn the house down? Overdramatization, methinks.
@narfcake I don't think anyone truly feels they got less than what they expected. Certainly not me. I was totally happy with the original contents of my Fuku, and I'm more than happy with the insantiy of my second shipment. But regarding the heater, it's a lot more than a broken cosmetic log. The only original packing material in the box is the styrofoam on the bottom. Everything else is just loose in there, including a dirty paper towel... It's obviously been taken out, likely used or tried and returned. I just wanted to know if anyone at meh knew anything about it as I'm concerned about the heater electronics and what kind of abuse they may have received. I do understand what @Kidsandliz is getting at though. There are items that are sent that are quite obviously broken and useless. Sure, it's thoroughly entertaining to see what kind of shit might be sent our way, but in a way it's also a bit frustrating to get something that could have been a nice surprise only to be disappointed in the fact that it's broken. I'm quite sure those that received Kindle Fires in their Fukus were thrilled. Though I can (and most likely will) sell a bunch of these spreaders for more than the cost of a Kindle, it's not like they had to do any extra legwork to reap the benefits of a better than average product.
@narfcake I am not saying I didn't get $5 worth of stuff with the fuku - I did. And I wasn't expecting anything more than that. I figured the fukus were the way they remainder out things they didn't have enough of to make it worth listing and I may or may not want any of it. What I didn't expect was totally trashed items that belong in the trash. I can not fathom why one would send that kind of stuff. All I am just saying, please don't send stuff so broken that the only choice is to throw it out. Save the postage. Throw it out at the headquarters. I am not expecting to be one of the lucky ones to get a kindle, TV, monitor, etc. and I am not upset that I haven't been one of the lucky ones. The odds are so not in anyone's favor to get lucky and that is fine. Totally broken to the point of useless should go in the trash at the warehouse. I also get that they can't test everything. When I got a broken Sony Dream machine I didn't even complain to meh. I knew they probably had no idea it was broken even though it looked a bit rough and they can't test them all. That is the luck of the draw. But sending obviously broken things - that is what I fail to understand. Why do that? What is the point?
@Kidsandliz It's entertaining. It's entertainment. It inspires great forum posts. We get great stories to tell families, friends, coworkers, strangers, and we have to explain Meh to all of them before we can even get to the point of saying "so I order a random box of junk..." and ending with "so I can't have a beer with you tonight because I'm expecting a 100-pounds box and I have no idea what's in it." Sheer entertainment.
@editorkid Funny you should say that... the friend I was out with when my box was delivered has recently quit drinking. I couldn't have a beer with him. Heh
@editorkid Yes it is entertaining - the wait, the unpacking, the forum thread(s) about this, the oddities and good stuff you get... And it can be just as entertaining without sending stuff so broken it belongs in the trash.
@Kidsandliz some people like the broken stuff. Some can be repaired, some can be repurposed, and yes some might be trash, but that's all the fun of it.
@Kidsandliz @JonT @MEHcus I vote that @Kidsandliz's next second shipment comes packaged in a dumpster. Or maybe 100 dumpsters.
@Ignorant Not when you pay by the trash bag to get rid of trash it isn't fun.
@editorkid @JonT @MEHcus No worries - will refuse delivery of dumpsters and so it will be returned to sender LOL Besides I don't have room for a dumpster amount of junk. (grin) Send it to @lisaviolet - it is her fault anyway that I don't like getting broken stuff I have to pay by the bag to put in trash pick up.
@Kidsandliz That's the point where I'd be throwing it in the old van and hauling it to the dumpster behind Walmart. Then again, I pay taxes to the township which cover trash pickup so I guess if I added up every bag I throw out, I could do the math and figure out how much I'm paying per bag.
@Kidsandliz then you probably shouldn't participate in a game where you have a chance of getting junk.
You take the chance, you might get good, might get junk, might get meh. If the risk isn't worth it then don't participate.
@Cinoclav By that logic throw out your entire house as then it will cost you the least per bag LOL
@Ignorant You take the good, you take the bad. You take them both and there you have, the junk of meh.
@Kidsandliz My stance on Fuku is the less we say about it the better, it’s best for as much of the process as possible to remain mysterious. I will say there are a lot of reasons why someone might receive broken stuff from us and I think they’ve all been called out in this thread already -- it could be that we don’t even know something is broken when we send it, it could be that it gets damaged/broken during shipping, or it could be that we knew it was broken and sent it because we thought it would be funny. If you don’t think it’s funny, well, I can understand that but we never said the contents of Fuku are guaranteed to be awesome.
@JonT I never asked that they be awesome and know they are not intended to be… you make few people's awesome and that is great, not complaining that I was not in the lucky 0.03% to get awesome. I also totally get what you get is the random luck of the draw and odds are high it is worth $5 even if it turns out you have no use for what is in there. I have no problem with that either. My only point in all of this has been if something is obviously so broken (before it is even packed to send) it is completely trash why send it? Not worth continuing the conversation as I had not intended to make this a big issue when I posted in response to @cinoclav's post about his heater/fireplace.
You can sell the spreaders on amazon- I sell stuff there all the time, they only take a small cut and the listings are pretty much managed for you.
@Pantheist Good idea. Not exactly a high demand item, but certainly worth the effort.
@Pantheist Wow, not that cheap when you're selling a cheap item. Amazon takes $.99 on each item. Since it's at most a $5 item, giving them 20% is too much. Ebay would take $.50 per item.
@Cinoclav Maybe sell a big single bundle at a time on Ebay, of course with a reserve.
@Teripie That was my first thought. Sell them in bulk. I have no desire to make that many trips to the post office. Lol
@Cinoclav Ah sorry- didn't realize there was a minimum charge.
@Pantheist No big deal. I'm glad I now know what they charge. Thank you for the suggestion!
@Pantheist I'd find out how much it would cost to take a table for a day at the swap and then sell them for $2-3 each.
I know the story, but isn't it more fun not to know?
@hart Actually, no. It's a lot more fun to know what the thought process was behind these crazy things. More importantly, if you know the deal with the fireplace I'd really appreciate knowing. I sort of prefer to not burn the house down.
@hart How about if we just speculate, then the first to answer what really happened gets something?
@narfcake Don't you see what happens when a "winner" "gets something" ? Are you interested in getting "something" next, perhaps? :P
@Cinoclav That, I honestly don't know.
@hart So, uh, what DO you know about the rest of it?
@Cinoclav
@hart I'm gonna start taking this personally.
@Collin1000 Whether I do or do not isn't a matter. The point of it is having fun with it.
Not a bad haul for $5!
@jsh139 No, not at all. A little bit of work, but if I could even get $2 per spreader I'd be happy. I'll probably end up giving away at least 50 of them.
Damn, I forgot my wallet at home (which never, ever happens). If only I had some way of making myself a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich I wouldn't have to borrow a few bucks for lunch.
Man, I'd have loved this! We sponsor families each year for the holidays who can't afford gifts for their kids, and we also help organize a small toy drive for about 150 needy kids in our area, and a lot of that would have been great to include for the kids!
@Sparky_Susan Random thought of the morning and if you're in on this, @cinoclav -- how much would it cost to ship the spreaders between the two of you? And have us Mehricans chip in via paypal to cover that shipping?
@narfcake That's a really nice thought, but the toy drive was this past weekend, and I'm bringing my sponsored family's gifts to the task force Thursday. My timing is always terrible! Happy Holidays to you, though, and thanks for the very sweet suggestion!
@narfcake This did spike my curiosity regardless of the need so I just ran a quick UPS price quote. Shipping for the bigger box of the two I used comes out to be about $40. I used Carrollton, Tx as the destination and I live near Philly. So, figure on close to $80 to ship those two boxes.
@Cinoclav How about FedEx ground and USPS parcel post? The pricing varies between all three, and even though I have a FedEx account (a slight discount), the competitors can still come in cheaper depending on what and where an item is going to..
@narfcake I wasn't going to get too far into it as it the whole issue had become pointless. I'm still going to work on a way to sell the majority of them. An extra $500 would give me a very happy meh face.
@Cinoclav Isn't a "happy" and "meh" a paradox?
@narfcake Aren't you happy when you come to meh?
@narfcake For future reference, I would be down to chip in for shipping on something like this.
@Cinoclav USPS flat rate boxes';; run about $11-15 depending on size- if you take the spreaders out of the packaging- you could get away with it ...
@alacrity Or, I could just send papers directing people to use their fingers to scoop and spread the peanut butter and jelly. It would really be so much easier this way.
That's a really nice thought, but the toy drive was this past weekend, and I'm bringing my sponsored family's gifts to the task force Thursday. My timing is always terrible! Happy Holidays to you, though, and thanks for the very sweet suggestion!
True behind the scenes story of your 2nd shipment box: we tried playing a game during Fuku 2 that I don’t want to quite give away the details of in case we try it again, but long story short whoever we sent the rules to apparently didn’t feel like playing so we never heard from them and they never received this awesome box. We didn’t want to let it go to waste so you got it instead.
As far as more background/information on the fireplace...can't help you there, it's origins are mysterious. Ideally it doesn't burn down your house but no promises.
@JonT I thought you were a mid-twenties guy with a beard. I think now it's clear what you really look like
@capguncowboy
@JonT Be right back... going to confirm the definition of the word 'awesome'.
@JonT I would be so much happier about this if it was a gif that slowly morphed her face into yours
@JonT You just won my photochop contest for today! Your prize will be on the way... someday.
@cinoclav I have done science experiments involving inappropriate things in a microwave oven. With proper preparation, this can be done safely.
You can turn on the LED light show, without turning on the heating element. The light show might do something interesting. That might be worth some pictures.
On the other hand, the heater is not even worth trying. It is possible that some of those many broken pieces of imitation logs are now in contact with a heating element. That is a recipe for foul smelling smoke. That is a pretty yucky worst case situation. While the best case would be that you have a huge ugly power wasting space heater. Unless you open it up and inspect the heating element, you'll have the fear that it might produce foul smelling smoke later on.
If you have a nice day, a handy outdoor nonflammable surface, an extension cord, and a GFCI protected outlet, you could see what it does. Do this near your trash cans, as most likely, the next step will be to throw it out. If it were me, I would probably keep the glass, thinking I would come up with some project for it. Of course I probably wouldn't, and would end up throwing it out a few years later.
If anyone is curious, the microwave experiment was a flop. We did not get a video of cool plasma effects before we used the fire extinguisher. If I ever try again, I will start with more than one free used microwave oven, and more than one camera operator. (It is easy to find free microwave ovens when you tell people that it doesn't have to be suitable for food.)
@hamjudo I think it's going to stay boxed until spring... I too had thought about trying it outside. Unless we get a heat wave, my fingers will be too numb to start disassembling anything outside any time in the near future.
@hamjudo Did you try the microwaving grapes experiment? I saw some video of that, and it was nuts. The only microwave experiment I ever did was an accident: one of my friends told me I could fix a busted CD by heating it briefly in the microwave- needless to say now, it was a bad idea, but thankfully it didn't consume the microwave, just left a horrible burning plastic stench floating around for a bit.
@hamjudo If you get tired of playing with electricity, just throw some hydrochloric acid on a kitchen sponge (put that mess in a glass container first). The results of that is rather impressive (no fire and flames, but I wasn't expecting what happened - I was expecting a hole).
@hamjudo Was looking for my video on grapes in the microwave, and found this article on metal in microwaves: http://www.wired.com/2014/05/wuwt-microwave-metal/ (with the grape video embedded)