Product endorsement

I am not one who usually endorses products or companies, but I have a cool story to tell which pretty much does the endorsing itself, so please bear with me...


Observe the tent in the picture above (ignore my smile and the complete awesomeness of the tent as it gives away the happiness of the ending of promised story. CAUTION: Do not skip reading the story because it's really quite good, and I will know that you cheated if you do it anyway). Twenty years ago this spring, Sean and I splurged and bought a North Face Tadpole model tent with part of our tax return. The very same tent you see in the picture above, in fact. This little two man, or one man and one woman rather, tent went on many an excursion from that time forth and served us very well indeed. That is, until about five years ago, when two boy scouts (Skyler and Forrest) took it to camp and proceeded to forget to stake it down. A windstorm ensued, and the tent came home with a broken pole (in 2 places) and a ripped rain fly. The tent then sadly resided in a stuff sack--untouched and unappreciated--for five years.

One day, I went to Out N Back and happened to ask an employee about tent repair. The employee asked what kind of a tent it was, and told me that yes they do repairs, but that I should try to contact The North Face about their lifetime warranty and see if the repairs might be covered by it. A couple of months went by, but finally, I did just that. I went to The North Face website and chatted with a friendly employee who told me to print of a return slip, fill it out, and send it in with the tent. She said that they would notify me by postcard about what they could do for me, if anything. I followed her directions and sent in the tent just under 2 weeks ago. I waited and waited, but did not receive a postcard, so I started to worry that my tent got lost in transit.

Fast forward to last night...a knock came at the door as Sean and I were busily preparing our Hawaiian haystacks. Sean went to investigate, and lo and behold, it was my tent--it had come back to me! Inside were two papers explaining how they replaced the poles even though the break wasn't covered by warranty as a one time service and also replaced the rainfly under the terms of the warranty. All it cost me was the 10 bucks to ship it to California. WaHoo! So, we calmly ate our dinner, then I promptly set up my tent, and Sean took a picture with his iphone to document the momentous occasion.

Let this be a lesson unto all: buy a North Face tent and you shall be happy forevermore.

The End.