After 3 long weeks of pre-order wait and then 4 even longer weeks of waiting for it to actually get delivered, I am typing this while the battery of my Fuji X-E1 is charging. It was a long road to get there. But with the help of the amazing (and amazingly patient) Duncan Turner , I was finally able to get my hands on it.When I first ordered the camera, Duncan told me he would contact me as soon as the camera would be delivered to his store. Impatience overtook me, and I told him confidently, “All you need to do is call me. I just need are 40 minutes to get to your store.” So he told me that he would certainly time me.At the beginning of this week, the camera finally arrived at the warehouse in Vancouver and was supposed to be delivered to the store in Abbotsford on Tuesday. But somehow it didn’t make it on the truck. On Tuesday I was told it would arrive around lunch time on Thursday (today). Lunchtime came and went, and no camera. At this point I’m getting quite worried that it’s not going to EVER happen. So close, yet so far. Quitting time arrives. It’s 1:30 PM, I need to go drive home pick up my son from school. School’s out at 2:15 and it’s a 40 minute drive. I wait until the last possible minute at work, checking my email every second, but finally I realize I have to leave, because I can’t have my son standing on the street by himself, waiting for me. While driving home in the rain storm, I check my email every 10 seconds, maybe if the notification comes now, I can still turn around and pick up the camera. But nothing. I get to the school and I’m 15 minutes late, yet I keep checking my email, and just as I turn into the pick-up zone, my email goes PING! “Your 40 minutes are starting NOW.”
Oh crap. I gesture for my son to jump in the car, and off we go. And THEN I suddenly remember that at 4 PM I am expecting an important phone call that cannot be rescheduled. Let’s calculate… it’s 2:30. 40 minutes to get to the camera shop, 40 minutes back, that leaves me just a couple of minutes for the transaction… DAMN, I can make it. I’m glad there are no cops on the highway, but the driving conditions are tricky, because of the heavy rain. With the Beetle I push trucks off the road and bully my way through the traffic, throw the car in the first parking spot I find, while my son tells me he doesn’t want to come with me and wants to stay in the car play with my phone. FINE. Who has the time to discuss anything. I finally step over the store threshold after exactly 40 minutes. Poor Duncan rushes the transaction through, just a bit of time for small talk, I let him open the box (he waited as long as me), I pay, and off I go. As I get to the car, I can see Thomas crying inside. “What happened?” “I need to go pee so badly!!” There really isn’t any time for that now, but who are we kidding, I drag him to the bathroom in the mall anyway… run… run… RUN!!! Then we run back to the car and – oh god – now it’s late. LATE! I swerve my way through the city traffic and back onto the highway. By now it rains so hard, I cannot even see the road anymore. Yet I’m pushing my car to the limit, risking my son’s and my life, I need to be back by 4… I need to be back by 4… I NEED to be home in time for that call… and I pull into our drive way at 3:57. I drop everything, purse, camera, my son, run into the house and grab the phone.
And then the call came at 4:21.