The artistry of packaging

Before she left from her visit with us on Sunday, Diane Pruden needed to package some shrubs she dug out of the woods near our home. Her plan was to take them as checked baggage on the flight home. Unfortunately, we had no box large enough to hold the shrubs, so she first attempted to cobble a protective shroud out of a cardboard box. She and Kenny spent quite a while one evening trying to make this work, but they are no Red Green, and the duct tape/cardboard packaging left way too much to be desired.

The next strategy was to go to a Kinko's and see if they had a box of appropriate size that the airline would allow to be used. We found an open Kinko's Sunday afternoon before her flight, and as we struggled to get the box out of the back of our van, the clerk actually met us outside. We could tell by his demeanor and comments that he was NOT looking forward to helping this customer. He tried to dissuade Diane from the attempt by showing the inadequacies of the boxes they had, and how expensive they were (especially if he was to be the one to do the packing). Little did he know that Diane Pruden is not easily swayed. I eventually suggested that they use a triangular-shaped FedEx mailer, which Diane taped together into an adequate package. She had to trim the shrubs down somewhat to fit them, and had to leave some of the soil behind, but it was a MUCH more presentable package by the time she was done--all for less than $4. The people at the airport didn't even bat an eye when she checked the box, and I guess it made the flight back to Detroit okay.

After dropping Diane off at the airport, we went to some home improvement stores in Little Rock and purchased some more remodeling materials for our next big adventure--redoing the main bathroom in the house. Stay tuned!