Ah, just messing with you guys. The drums arrived at my sister's place in western Washington early this afternoon!
She sent pics of the boxes, which are largely intact. She opened one smashed-looking box and said everything looked OK. Since then, we've both been at work or otherwise occupied in our different time zones, with no way to really discuss the condition of the equipment. Even so, I'm really excited!
She is going to ship it all to me via FedEx, where my brother's wife works and can get me a sizable discount. It should be here in a week or so, but I have told them there's no hurry ...
... because I go in for surgery on my shoulder next Tuesday, and I won't be able to lift a stick (or a pencil, a shoelace, a feather ...) for at least two months. I have a SLAP tear (labrum of the shoulder joint, quite a bit worse than a rotator cuff tear) and have been in considerable pain for more than a year. So I'm glad to get it fixed, but it's kind of a big deal as far as recovery time and so forth. And now I have, finally, a brand-spanking-new, full-size set of drums for the first time since I picked up sticks in 1972, and I can't even bang, or stroke, or smash, or flam, pat, flick, or beat on the damned things.
This is killing me!