Shipping box and bubble wrap. When I put the bubble wrap back in the box,, I could barely close it.

When I got home from a week each in Ithaca and at the Harvard reunion, there was a box on the living room floor. A large box, big enough to make a playhouse for a small child. I couldn’t remember ordering anything that huge. But then I saw the “glass” stickers on all sides, remembered I’d done some shopping at the Cornell Glass Museums store, and had the store send my purchases to me. Surely I hadn’t bought that much!

All that box and bubble wrap to ship these.

When I opened the box, all I could see was Styrofoam pellets. Even after I scooped out half a trash bag full, I could see nothing but Styrofoam. Digging through the pellets, I finally felt bubble wrap and pulled out a book – heavily cushioned in bubble wrap. Then another, the Corelle dishes I’d bought (they aren’t in the stores in Fairbanks), the jigsaw puzzle of one of Chihuly’s chandeliers, and finally two small glass paperweights. Everything was cocooned in bubble wrap.

Close-up of the two small paperweights.

Obviously the store clerks were used to packing fragile items to withstand the tender handling of FedEx! At any rate, they beat me to Alaska and arrived in beautiful condition.