Damnation: The Cynos Project

Except my name is not Aladdin. And I paid for my bounty, not like that crook. Holy Frack did I pay..though not surprising, I am hardly known to be a purveyor of wise decisions. 

Water is also known to be wet. 

So it goes that I had been recently obsessed by the notion of purchasing far too many parts with no particular purpose for them for no particular reason. This notion was given extra impetus when I bought, and subsequently almost immediately sold my beloved BigEnd Roder wheels - despite having taken so long to find them, I was just feeling awash with an all-enveloping, p.i.t.a need to be particularly pedantic for the net benefit of null. Just headache, heartache and fruitcake. 

Regardless, I persisted. scouring the Japanese auction pages frantically and desperately, almost in fear of the stark acknowledgement of having done something incredibly idiotic in selling the Roders. Nothing came up, but as always whenever I venture onto the Auction pages, other things started appealing, and blurring my focus. Not that that is particularly difficult to achieve - wave any manner of treats or brightly coloured objects in front of my face and I'm [brown] butter. Then, a series of precariously opportune events happened, that in isolation meant little, but together gave impetus to the impulse purchase of epic futility. Firstly, I found someone willing to bid on items for me, seeing as my usual go-to was (wisely) avoiding me. I had then received an email from someone that wanted my Roders, and I had exclaimed that I was actually hoping to buy in a set from Japan and could potentially help. Uh-huh..I then also realised that, I had actually a bit of spare monies in my account. Spare in that, it was not doing anything, and rather than invest/save/something vaguely more intellectual than throwing it at inane purchases, I decided it could be thrown. At inane purchases. Then the nail in the coffin. I found a person that worked with sending containers from Japan to anywhere. End of rational thought. 

And it followed, a process of searching, missed bids, successful bids, and nothing really necessary or of any real purpose purchased. All the whilst ignoring "extraneous" costs to those issued thus far via the Paypal button for the bids. As the time passed, so the bounty accumulated. Realisation set in about the direction this situation was going; on a rather grander scale than any previous purchases from Japan, so I attempted to get some others to join in on the purchase. They did not catch - little did they know, much to their benefit. I continued undeterred. The months passed, the bids continued, and the costs piled on, though I denied their existence. I started going to eccentric paths, buying two sets of the same wheel, either to create the ideal set, or because I had found a "better" set after having already bought one. You know, as I am so ably endowed with a stable income. In the meantime, bidding duty transferred from the original Japanese fellow to the importer, as his apparent lack of grasp of English meant I was paying for items I did not request - only my lack of a sense of judgement is allowed to be responsible for such recklessness. Eventually I got bored, and decided it would be time to have everything shipped over. Which is when the real joy of this drawn out process came into play. Despite the export charge increasing by around 50% due to a "miscalculation" of item volume...of around 50%, that was not the issue.

I had grossly underestimated the effect of the actual importation.

Bah. And humbug. 

Ever.

439kg. Of fastidiously over-packaged. Heavy. Assorted rubbish. Which needed to be moved up a very considerate, slippery slope. A kind hearted fox had also decided to lay down its worth in the narrow gap between the parked cars. There was not any spilt milk, but I shall continue crying thank you very much.