[Visionary (David)]

For many years I had wanted to own a "proper" scope. I have a beautiful easy to use spotting scope that I have taken to Hawaii and on a cruise through the islands of the South Pacific... I was ready for a relationship with a "proper" scope. As fate would have it my chosen object of my affections resolved itself into a Celestron 130 Power Seeker.
As with many I have all my Ebay "gold" delivered to work. I was called down stairs and I signed the package. The large package turned slightly as I took it out of the Delivery Dude's arms, betraying the presence of formed metals within the box, "still my beating heart". This was it, this was my first real scope!
I found some reason to leave exactly on time from work. On arriving home I carried my delivery down stairs and into the Den that was reserved as its new home.
It seemed like a normal unboxing, I had watched similar unboxing scenes many, many times on Youtube and everything appeared to be normal but.... something was seriously wrong! I had thought it odd that the mount resisted my best attempts at getting it to move. Surely, I thought it was some strange "telescope magic" the mount would not move untill all its elements had been brought together, a little like Captain Planet... "when my elements combine" well sadly there was no metamorphosis my long awaited and much anticipated baby turned out to be a piece of crap! The mount and all of its components were frozen solid. The Latitude screw was the wrong size for the Latitude thread everything conceivable piece of wrongness had come together in my baby! Like any new parent I had just wanted my scope to look like all the other scopes.
At this point I realised that the mount was so f&%ked up that even the scopes own mother would deign knowledge of the wretched thing. I didn't need my 18 year old son's helpful observation "Dad, have you bought another piece of cr&p off Ebay"? Clear I had, my vainful boasting "It only cost $315" was still ringing in my ears. How in the hell could I return this piece of cr&p? It was just too wrong, no one believe the appalling mess could have arisen from the box. It would have required unholy interference from a maniacal hater of all things astronomic to produce such a horrid combination of gross mechanical failure.
So it was that I returned to the purveyor of my disappointment. The only thing I did wisely in the entire transaction had been to ensure that the distributor of the scope was based in Aust and thereby cover via: Aust consumer legislation. So it was that I phoned the distributor. After a couple of wrings the phone was answered by a lovely calm female voice. I knew my story would not be believed so I started by explaining that I didn't expect to be believed, as it was just way too wrong. I can't say I was believed, as my story really was unbelievable however, she was prepared to receive the scope back for a techie evaluation. Fast forwarding..... the scope was replaced with a new one. This time the mount worked perfectly. The joints carried lube and all was good however...... The blood sweat and tears the whole business had cost me had sucked the life out of any pleasure I may have derived from the scope. The Celestron 130 sits under a dust cover in a darkened corner of the garage. My once much anticipated baby sits forlorn, deserted and alone in the garage the trauma of its birth is still too great. Maybe some day I will have the strength of purpose to strip back the dust cover and point the scope upwards into a darkened sky, but not tonight, tomorrow.