Sticky Tale, Happy Ending

About 6 months ago I ran short of glue.  This is a big deal for me.  I bought my first gallon of wood glue not long after Elmer's brought out the first yellow polyvinyl.  Got several years out of it and used up every bit.  I bought a gallon of Titebond next because it was available.  Then another Elmer's.  Each purchase came years apart.  But I was down to the end again.

I've got a pint Elmer's bottle that must be, oh, 30 years old now. Have another pint I picked up along the way.  One of these has a neck that's been reamed out wide for fast delivery on bigger projects.  Then there are 2 little 1/2 pints I must have got in times of desperation or when out of town or maybe a yard sale.  Can't remember.  Anyway I refill these bottles from the current gallon as my working stash.

Refilling a glue bottle has some adventure attached.  First it gets a thorough clean out and chipping all the old glue to get the bottle clean.  You have to prop the bottle upright securely somehow to fill it.  Then insert the funnel. You pour out a plop of glue from the gallon and it goes nowhere.  That's why you secure the bottle.  Then move to the next bottle and plop some in that funnel. Down the line.  Eventually the glue all oozes in and you do it all again.  The last is hard to judge because you don't want it running over.

So, I was down to my last 1/2 pint of glue, where I started this tale.

I looked at the local hardware but nothing like a large bottle to be found.  I had to go out of town for some unavoidable reason and looked all over Yreka Ca at the county seat.  Finally found a gallon in the oldest hardware still surviving.  It was pretty dusty on the shelf but I was in need.  I took it.  Elmer's Pro Bond.  Well I got it home and it didn't look so good.  It was dark and had separated some.  Gummy and lumpy.  I put a long stick in and stirred for some time and got it looking better.  Filled my bottles.

But it wasn't very good. It took forever to set and wasn't as strong as I'd have liked and wanted to go off in the storage bottle.  None of these good traits.  I was terribly disappointed.  A new gallon of glue for a poor boy like me is a comfort.  It was a 2 hour drive back to Yreka if I wanted to return it.  I wasn't sure they'd have another and if they did it was likely to be the same.  About 3 years ago there was a big storm out in Yreka complete with 10' of snow and they lost power for 2 weeks.  I suspect the glue had frozen in the warehouse then.  Maybe froze and thawed several times.  I started to just take my lumps and go on the hunt for another bottle.

I already had in fact, and was researching who had the best deal on postage mail order.  (Amazon was looking pretty good, btw.)  But something came over me.  I figured, "Hey, I'm a regular person".  I've been around awhile and some people know me.  So I sent a note to Elmer's.  I tried to explain the whole situation and tried to do it politely without rancor even though I really was kind of distraught.  Next day, I get a note right back.  "We've very sorry you received an inferior product.  We can't tell from here what happened. We try to monitor quality control very carefully", basically kind and concerned. And, oh yeah, "We are sending you a coupon good for a new gallon of glue wherever our product is sold".

This was great, except I couldn't trade it in, I'm thinking.  "It's hours to anywhere that sells glue in quantity."  "Maybe I can get them to order it for me at the local hardware?  If I do will they send it from Meeks supply who hates Happy Camp and only sends the least possible quality of everything downriver??"  All were thoughts I had.

Guess what?  Yesterday I stop by the PO and checked my mail. There was a package slip telling me to report to the window and pick something up.  It was a gallon of Probond fresh off the line.  They'd paid almost as much postage to send it to me as I had paid for the first gallon of glue. 

And what glue it is. I never knew it could be that good. It's buttah, sweet cream buttah!

Elmer's glue, a real company still in business to please their customers. Hard to beat.