(Fear not, this story does not involve loss of life and limb or the destruction of innocent airplane parts)
Way back in March, the long-awaited day arrived: the truck driver called to report that he'd be at my house in about 30 minutes with me wing kit. I was overjoyed...time to get some of the Real Work going here! Getting down to business inventorying took a bit of the shine off, particularly when I saw that I had a few items backordered:
- A couple of tank ribs
- All 210 of the tank attach nutplates
- Some nutplates for the stall warning kit (which I didn't plan on using anyway)
That didn't stop me from getting to work, though. I set about assembling the rear spars, and when that ran out, I went to tinkering on the main spars. Without the tank attach nutplates, the Big Job had to wait, but I still had inspection plate nutplates, tiedowns, etc., all of which I took care of.
About a month in, I hadn't received any shipments from Van's, so I gave them a call to check on the status of my backorder. I found that the tank ribs had come in, along with one of the nutplate batches, but the other nutplates had not. I didn't remember off the top of my head the part numbers for the nutplates and which ones were for the stall warner and which ones were for the tanks, but it was suggested that the ones still on backorder were for the tanks.
End result: they shipped out the stuff they had in stock, and were expecting the other nutplates to go out in early May. Thus did I set in my head the expectation that all that countersinking would wait until May.
A few days later, I got a shipment. Hooray, parts! In it I found exactly what I was expecting: two tank ribs and a paper bundle. Remember, I was expecting the stall warning nutplates, which I cared nothing about. So while the ribs went directly to my Big Shelf O' Airplane Parts, I just tossed that paper bundle on a workbench without even checking its contents.
Over the next few weeks, I sporadically lamented my prodigal tank attach nutplates. Why, if I just had those things, I wouldn't lack for work at all! Lots of countersinking to do! If only they'd just ship them out! I finally resigned myself to getting into the grind of straightening ribs.
Then, today, I was
overjoyed to find an envelope from Van's in the mailbox. Finally, my last missing link was here! I practically ran inside, tore the envelope open, and found...a tiny bag containing ten nutplates.
TEN?!?! There are supposed to be 200-and-some of these for the tanks? How in the world did they foul this backorder up so bad? My victory had been destroyed! Puzzled, I went out to the garage to look at the parts list and see if there were some other backordered nutplates I'd forgotten about.
(Many of you undoubtedly see where this is going)
Ha, there's the backorder list! Two tank ribs...nutplates for the stall warning kit, which consists of...wait..ten K1100-06. I take a look at the bag I just got in the mail. Ten K1100-06 nutplates.
Wait, does this mean...? My gaze fell upon that still-unwrapped paper bundle over in the corner. Surely I'm not this dumb, right?
Yes, I am. Inside that paper bundle was a bag with 210 K1100-08 nutplates. Sure enough, those nutplates I'd lamented not having had been gathering dust in my garage for a month.
On the bright side, my wing ribs are almost all done!
A story about assumptions
(As I grew up in GA) "Ida stowl dem rite owta yore shop!" 
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