SPECIAL DELIVERY...?

...Or, Is This What They Mean by Over-Packaged?

The whole thing started with confusion. 

I got home from the School Run to find a Yodel Delivery Service ticket on my doormat, bearing the legend that they Missed Me Today (aah, sweet) when they had tried to deliver. 
But all was not lost - they had helpfully left my parcel 'With The Neighbour at No.10'.

Not my actual Yodel Ticket

Great.  Except we are No.10.

Now, only last week I had a Recycling Trauma (something I am no stranger to , as you can read here in a much earlier post, should you so desire). 

This latest trauma involved my lovely Postie very helpfully leaving a parcel in our Recycling Box.  This normally works well for us - except on this occasion I didn't get home until after the recycling had been collected.  O My Flippin' G. 
The parcel contained new lunchboxes for the new school year, which was, literally, only hours away (okay days, but I like to be organised).
This is exactly the kind of thing that can very easily Tip Me Over the Edge.  
I emailed Polargear - my Lunchbox Supplier of Choice - and their customer service was second to none.  They were nothing short of epic and two swanky, spanky new lunchboxes were with me by next-day delivery.

Swanky new lunchboxes.
(There are two, but they are identical so....)

But I digress...
Back to not knowing where our Yodel parcel was...

Naturally after the RT of last week I zipped outside and checked all four of our recycling boxes (4 - get us!  Not sure if that's good or bad, now I come to think of it...)

There was Nothing.

I even checked the Wheelie Bin.

Again, Nothing.  Except an overpowering stench of awfulness that was immediately addressed by the application of Copious Amounts of Jeyes Stinky Bin-Begone, or similar.

Short of knocking on the doors of the whole street and asking, 'Do you have a parcel for me?' and risk looking more than a little needy, there was nothing much I could do. 
Luckily, the Neighbour Who Had Taken My Parcel In (No.4, if you're interested) came a-knockin' and handed over quite the largest package Mr W's been passed since...ever.


Unless you're familiar with Amazon's label sizes,
it's going to be hard to judge how big this parcel is.

Hopefully this helps.  This is a UK Size 5 Croc.

'Whatya been buying?' enquired Mr W as he attempted to negotiate the kitchen doorway with this gigantic delivery.   (I fancy I may have detected a slightly forced quality to the casual tone of his voice).

'Um........I have no idea', was my not very reassuring reply.  'I did order a wallet for No.1 Son, but that was only this morning...'

In much the same way as my Mother In Law attempts to divine who is calling on the telephone, rather than actually answer the phone and find out once and for all - I spent long moments staring at this cumbersome package wondering what on earth could be inside.

'There's nothing else for it,' I declared, slapping my thigh to accentuate my decisiveness, 'I'm going to have to open it'. 
Unimpressed by my can-do attitude and innate ability to identify the course of action required, Mr W barely glanced up from his paper and replied,

'Well it is addressed to you'.

So I opened it...

Ooh, there's a lot of paper...

Yeah.  Really a lot of paper...

 

...And the anticlimax hung in the air like wet woollen stockings in an ill-ventilated room.

It was Daughter Aged 9's new umbrella.  
Pah.

Really?  You couldn't have found a slightly smaller box?
Really..?

Well at least she'd be pleased. 

Although since she procured it we have been blessed with unbroken sunshine. 
If I encourage her to buy a swimsuit in December we are pretty much guaranteed a White Christmas.

Ah look ... It's Witchy getting in on the act.