Everyone has collected something from some time or another. Some people collect rare Pokémon cards. Others expensive sports cars. And you may even run into the occasional Mickey-Mouse knick-knack extraordinaire every now and then. The Sharples collect rocks. Not any rocks though. Oh, no! It would just be too simple to pocket a quixotic piece of quartz or phenomenal looking pebble. Nope! The Sharples family travels off the beaten path! So, why did my parents go to the beach and bring back two hundred and fifty pounds in lava rocks? Why did Miley Cyrus go insane? Who knows? Let’s just say that in their twisted minds, ordinary just got old and they both decided to turn to dirty rock. So if you also dabble in rock collecting, and somehow found yourself loving a baby mammoth’s weight in stone, read this step-by-step guide on how to send him back home!
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Find your rocks.
Tuck and a quoot stray dog collecting the rocks on the beach.
To start out, we need a few rocks (minimum weight of fifty pounds each). If you haven’t already completed this step then simply rent a crappy car and get going to the nearest beach in Santorini. However, I do recommend doing a little research before hand because you don’t want to wind up in a beach like Perivolos; no big rocks, tons of big sweaty nude people. Now if you’re reading this and thinking, “Huh. At first this whole thing sounded kind of fun, but spending money on cars, research, ludicrous lollygaggers struttin’ around in their birthday suit! I’m just not so sure anymore.” Then you always have the option of snagging a few volcanic boulders off the neighbors’ stone palisade. (Note that this is your decision to make and author, Wescott Sharples, does not condone any of your actions.) My parents decided to top out at twenty rocks, but let’s draw the line at eighteen because twenty seems a bit excessive.
Once you have your rocks make sure to rent the car one extra day. This way you can store the stones in the musty trunk while you plan your next course of action. By the way, your next move should be this: round up your three older kids. (If you don’t have any kids over the age of eight, you can always grab a few husky-looking kids off the Santorini streets.) Once you have successfully amassed assistants bring them to your rental car. (And if you got kids off the street, I suggest proceeding with step in a slightly less sketchy way then, “Hey kids! Come help me get these heavy rocks out of my car parked way down there!” Or you might possibly face criminal charges.)
Make everybody load up their bags, shirts, and arms with all the rocks they can carry. It’s funny how heavy eighty pounds feels on your back, and how much lighter it sounds when your dad describes the mission on the way to the car! In addition to struggling under the shear weight of the stones, I suggest you schedule something very important to take place twenty minutes from this exact moment; we went with a professional painter located in Fira because we like to keep things classy. Of course there was nothing classy about the way we were sprinting down the narrow stairways of Oia, sweating, stumbling, and bumping into complete strangers. But hey, even the guy riding on the donkeys got a good laugh as we half sprawled half sprinted by him. Once you finally make it back to the house with your kids, rocks, and remainder of self-esteem, start the second half of your relay race with the rest of your family to the bus stop–because there is no way your missing a meeting with the best artist in Santorini after all that!
Mom and Dad washing rocks and getting tipsy!
Now that you have returned home, your rocks probably look better than they did before–after all the work you have done! So there you stand, nothing between these lava rocks and your featured home decor but shipping laws, TSA box checker people, and the deliveryman. It’s time to strategize! You could send them via the local Oia post office, but seeing how this option would put a sizable dent in your budget and has a high probability of failure, I advise against it. The second option is to pass the collection of rocks off as a sculpture. We considered this for a great deal of time and my dad even used his hidden sculpting talent to assemble the rocks in an extraordinarily artistic way. He made a brochure and we even had a receipt authenticating the purchase of the fictional sculpture.
Yet after all that, we also excluded this option, because although it was an intriguing art project, it really didn’t eliminate any of the major issues pertaining to option number one. This leaves you with option number three: find KiKi. Kiki was our exceptionally nice neighbor and caretaker in Oia. If you explain the situation enough times and establish that you do in fact want to send just the rocks and nothing else to Athens, she will be more than happy to help! She knows a guy who knows a guy who transports goods from Oia to Athens with his dinky motorboat. He was more than willing to throw our rocks onto his vessel for a mere thirty euro. Sounded somewhat unreliable, but unless you have a better idea, I would just go with it!
At this time you probably just arrived in Athens, sick of Greek food after two weeks of eating the same meals every day, and exhausted after waking up at five in the morning to catch your flight. But despite all these disparities, surprise and delight will flicker across your face when you receive the phone call from the front desk warily explaining that five heavy boxes just arrived at the hotel front door addressed to you. “I can’t believe they actually made it!” You’ll exclaim to your nonchalant children as you put down the phone and put on your shoes. Even though this feeling is rewarding your journey with the two hundred and fifty pounds of rock is far from over.
Your next mission is getting them from Athens, Greece to Mercer Island, Washington–a slightly more daunting task than the first. Since Athens is a little less laid back than the diminutive island of Santorini, you only have two choices as far as shipping goes. Send them by air or sea. We originally leaned towards sea because we assumed it would be the cheaper and slower option, and since we were not getting home any time soon, the speed of travel didn’t bother us. Well, we were right about one of thing: it was going to be slow, but in terms of pricing, we were not expecting three thousand euro! So again we were left with one option: air. From your Athenian hotel, hail a taxi and load it up with your heavyweight boxes, and word to the wise, ask your concierge if he can give directions to the cab driver, or else you are in for a long and convoluted discussion in Greeklish (Greek and English mixed together, but mostly Greek).
Once you finally arrive at the post office, your going to want to explain the situation and package contents without sounding like a deceptive terrorist. (Something about somebody willing to ship two hundred pounds of rock for three hundred euro sets off some red flags in the shipping department.) Yes, apparently transporting rocks by high-speed jumbo jet is 1/10 the amount of sending something via the slow ship freight. We were willing to take the deal, just as you should! However let’s be realistic, two hundred and fifty pounds of lava rock is a little bit too expensive, how about you dump fifty pounds and we call it good.
We decided on abandoning our surplus stones a block away from our hotel. We placed them artfully in front of a cruise agency, in hopes that they might adopt our newly found orphans.
Otto and I abandoning our beloved rocks.
This step feels wrong for a number of reasons. Mostly because it’s kind of like you just kidnapped some kids and are now abandoning them in some foreign sketchy neighborhood. In addition, it looks like your dropping off a bomb, so that doesn’t help.
Congratulations you too have officially mastered the art of irrationality! Now that you have unearthed, shipped, and deserted your boulders, there is only one thing left to do: wait. Although the Athenian economy doesn’t instill much confidence, have faith that they will eventually arrive at your front doorstep. Our first box of rocks just recently arrived and Mouni sent us this picture.
Safe and sound.
Through this experience I have learned that although venturing off of the beaten path may prove challenging and tedious, it does make for some killer memories!
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