There was also a gift card, but Macy's sent it SEPARATELY.

I came home today to find a package on the doorstep. It was addressed to Lucy (BOOOOO) but seeing as how Lucy is unable to get her own thumb into her mouth, let alone safely wield a pair of scissors, I opened it myself.

It was a rather large box.

Too large for an outfit or a set of bibs. But it was clearly from Macy's (DUH), so, a toy, maybe? A ridiculously oversized stuffed animal that I will quickly relegate to Those Who Are Less Fortunate? Oooh! Perhaps it contained Baby's First Panini Press! (PLEASE LET IT BE A PANINI PRESS.) (SPOILER: IT IS NOT A PANINI PRESS.)

Maybe you can't really tell from that first picture. The box was as big as Hambone. 

Hambone was very suspicious of the box. Note the Milk Bone used to lure him onto the couch for comparative purposes.

Sidebar: Some of you wanted to know how Hambone is doing. He continues to dislike the children and I continue to give him table scraps to make up for the fact that we now have TWO of these very unlikable things called children, which means that he is a little bit pudgy and very much reluctant to have you see him from the neck down. So here's a head shot.

ANYWAY. I opened the box. It was full of styrofoam packing peanuts. 

The peanuts were hiding another big box, which was tied beautifully with a white satin ribbon. You will note that I did not take a picture of the unopened box. This is because I was still unaware of the absurdity of the situation at hand.

I opened the white box. There was yet ANOTHER box inside the white box, and inside that box there was a bag, and do you know what I found inside the bag?

A silver baby rattle. A VERY VERY TINY SILVER BABY RATTLE. (Which I actually love, it makes the sweetest little tinkly sound, but HONESTLY, MACY'S.)

Can you see it? Sitting right there next to the box? The box that it is approximately 1/300000th the size of? (You: JUST BARELY! IF I SQUINT!)

Dear Macy's,

WHAT A FREAKING WASTE OF CARDBOARD AND STYROFOAM. No wonder you charge $15 for shipping. 

Your friend,

Emily

Comments

[TUWABVB]

I have to tell you, nothing pissed me off more that registering at Macy's and cleaning up each of those mother-fing-bloody peanuts every time we received so much as a fork. Okay, we didn't register for silver, but seriously - they over do the peanuts thing NO MATTER WHAT YOU BUY. P.S. You don't need packing peanuts for a GD blanket. I've never heard of one breaking in shipment before.

Shudder.

[TUWABVB]

Can we report them to some green-watch-dog company or something? Seriously...married two years and I'm still pissed off.

[Courtney]

Oh my word, that is too awesome. What a waste of packing material!!

[Kerri Anne]

Office Depot does that with our office deliveries ALL THE TIME. They seriously sent hanging file folder labels in a HUGE box once. As if they didn't want the hanging file folder labels to be a danger to themselves or others.

[jms]

Yep. I got married last year, and Macy's regularly sent single plates, mugs, etc., in boxes of that size. Nothing as tiny and non-fragile as a baby rattle, though.

For those who can't abide throwing the peanuts away, pack-and-ship stores will happily take them. (I can talk because I don't have a newborn. If I did, those things would go right in the trash.)

[Kate]

That is insane! But I was distracted from your story by how much I LOVE the color of your walls!

[NGS]

You can't make that shit up. I laughed so hard at that, my husband thought I was dying. Of laughter.

Oh, my stomach hurts.

Shame on Macy's!

[Robin]

Wow, that is absolutely horrible. I think that you should send a letter or an email to someone at Macy's. Absolutely awful.

[Emily]

Good grief! If it's any consolation, those packing peanuts look to be made of cornstarch, and are therefore biodegradable. But STILL, that's ridiculous!

[Amy]

How cute is Hambone??

[hootenannie]

Oooooh!!!! The GLEEFUL LAUGHTER coming from my face!!!! Thank you for such delightful entries, dear Emily. :)

[Pam]

We still have boxes and peanuts in the basement (that I refuse to throw away as I am sure I can reuse every.single.one!) from when we got married 2 1/2 years ago.

[nonsoccermom]

I KNOW! Other companies are guilty too - I ordered three small bottles of nail polish from Sephora a few weeks ago and the box they came in was ridiculous! What a waste.

[Andrea]

This is hilarious and aggravating all at the same time. Maybe the people who ship gifts have a contest to see who can put together the most absurd packaging. I can imagine that would be the only way I could make it through a day if my job were to ship packages.

[Janssen]

Oh my heavens, that is INSANE!

[Brie]

Having recently gotten married I can tell you it is not only macy's that does this, but also Dillards and Bed Bath and Beyond. Ridiculous!

[MrDolomite]

Remember kids, S&H now stands for "Stupidity & Handling"

[McCashew]

HA! Thanks for this much needed laugh. Seriously Macy's?????

[kirida]

That is bananas. Thanks lot for helping out the environment, Macy's.

[Hilary]

Wow, that is unbelievable! What a total waste! Also, the rattle is lovely and you can sort of see your ring in that picture which is a hint that I'd love to see the whole ring. :)

[Trilby]

The rattle is cute, but I'm with you on the absurdity of the bag in a box in a box in a box.

[Becky (StinkyLemsky)]

okay, I literally giggled at your post here in my cubicle jail... hilarious!

[Parsing Nonsense]

Ha! That last shot, of the rattle sitting next to the giant box, is priceless. You should see how Amazon ships their gift cards, though. Like shipping a mouse in a swimming pool it is.

[Melani]

Good to see Hambone is doing well despite the annoying little people in the house! He is so cute!

And now for my completely random question--Love the color of your kitchen. Would you by chance remember the name of the color? That's exactly what I want for my kitchen. I have a paint chip called apple green that seems close but I'm not sure.

We have packing peanuts all over our garage b/c my 11 and 10 year old kids thought it would be fun to "play" with them. I think they're multiplying because I keep cleaning them up and then find more. I prefer bubble wrap--fun to pop, easy to clean.

[Kristen]

That is ridiculous! What a waste of material.