Adventure in a Box

Yesterday we got something in the mail.  Everyone should get  something like this at least once in their lives.  Not necessarily what we got, but something along these lines in this fashion.  Because getting a big wooden crate from overseas is really awesome.
Cue the Indiana Jones theme music (and ignore the existence of the last movie while you do it, please.)
It arrived while I was at work.  I didn't get a phone call from my daughter, (though my DH did--what's with that?!) so I was totally surprised.
Being surprised is super-fun, so actually I didn't mind not getting the call.  And I was working, supposedly.  I just have to publicly hassle my family once in a while.
Anyway, I got my camera and started snapping pictures.  The girl had a hammer ready.  I think she was a little excited too.  :-)
The thing was built like Fort Knox.  Now that I've read 1776 by McCullough, the name Knox has a whole new depth to it.  It's a rockin' name, and a great book.  Highly recommended.  I regret not getting the illustrated edition.  BTW, I have a weird association with McCullough the author and Support Your Local Sheriff, where the bad guy Joe Danby asks what the hero's name is and he replies with Jason McCullough in the middle of a cute, funny section of dialogue.  Also also highly, highly recommended movie.  But I digress.
Getting the box opened was no easy feat.  I had to use my very modest carpentry skills to do it.
Now you can cue the creepy Indiana Jones music where they're about to open the Ark of the Covenant.
And inside the box ... was another box!
I had a flashback to a scene in The Emperor's New Groove.  Also highly recommended.  I don't think as many people saw The Emperor's New Groove as some of the other Disney movies, which is a shame.  It's one of the better ones.  I've rewatched it many times, of my own free will, with no small children to prompt me to do so.

Inside the box was an egg-like object, something wrapped in bubble wrap that was then wrapped in brown mail packaging tape so thoroughly that you couldn't actually see the bubble wrap.
We got a knife and began extracting the contents with surgical care.  My surgical nurse provided tension as I cut and peeled the bubble wrap apart.
This was what was inside.
I gasped.
.... it's so beautiful ....
But our faces didn't melt off.  We were safe.  You can go back to the adventure theme now, if you like.
We put it up on a shelf in the entryway.  Then I started to have waking nightmares about cats hopping up there, as they often do, and knocking it down.  I could actually hear the crash of it hitting the floor in my mind in the middle of the night, followed by the skidding and scrabbling of kitty feet on laminate flooring so that I couldn't even identify the perpetrator that I would have to hunt down and kill.
Not literally kill.  Or even hit, or curse at, actually.  Mostly I would just hug a pillow and rock and sob and tear my hair and throw ashes on my head.  Part of that is very Greek, appropriate in this case.

So we moved some books out of our built-in bookshelves and there it sits in a greek wine amphora-sized cubby.  The cats may still knock it down, but they would really, really have to work at it this time.  It's also nicely at eye level.
It's a replica, of course.  If it was the real thing, I would have to put it in a box.  Preferably a glass box, but back in the wooden box in the meantime, and of course I would never get around to getting the glass box, and no one would ever see it.  Which would be a shame.  But it's a replica, so it's all okay.

I won't have anything nearly so nifty to post about in a while, so enjoy the moment.  I'll get back to our regular boring stuff tomorrow.