I was truly surprised to see this book show up on my front porch yesterday.

I ordered “The Ashley Book of Knots” from a book store in Vashon, Washington, on September 24th. When the US Postal Service picked it up from the store, they assigned a tracking number so I could check on its progress through the mail system. They picked up the book on the same day I ordered it, September 24, and transported it from Vashon to the USPS hub in Seattle. They said I could expect delivery on October 18th.

The book next showed up at a USPS hub in Olathe, Kansas, on September 26th. At that point, they updated the delivery date to October 8th, which turned out to be optimistic. The book remained in Olathe for almost two weeks.

On October 6th, it showed up on Anchorage, Alaska, at 1:57 AM. Weirdly, it departed Anchorage at 7:35 AM the same day, which makes me imagine a USPS employee picking up the package, checking the destination, making a little “Whoopsie!” noise and chucking it right back onto the plane.

Somehow, the book spent the next thirteen days inching its way from Anchorage to whereever. And they deleted the delivery date. At the end of the first week after it left Anchorage, with the status still “in transit” and the delivery date still blank, I had a sneaking suspicion they didn’t even have my book any longer.

Almost two weeks later, tracking was updated to indicate my book showed up at the USPS hub in Saint Paul, Minnesota on October 18th! And they updated the delivery date! To October 18th. Hmmm. I’m not feeling really confident about that delivery date, guys.

But yesterday! A box addressed to me arrived! The return address was in Vashon WA! It was big enough and heavy enough to be a book! I opened it with great anticipation, carefully slicing the packing tape, brushing aside the packing peanuts, tearing open the heavy brown wrapping paper (those guys really know how to package a book) — and there it was! The Ashley Book of Knots! It traveled 8,855 miles and it took 27 days to do it, but it finally got here!

And I gotta tell you, it looks pretty good! I’ve watched a lot of videos to teach myself some useful knots, but I wanted a written reference I could use when YouTube isn’t easily consulted. I don’t have my Boy Scout’s Handbook any longer, and I heard Ashley wrote the bible on knots, so I ordered this. It shows way more knots than I’ll ever learn, so it’ll definitely give me something to do this winter.