Mailing Katie's Present

My grand daughter's birthday is coming up. I wander the toy aisles at Target. Never having had a girl, I am a bit at a loss about what she might want. I know she is into princesses and my little ponies. There is a Barbie princess doll that is a vision of loveliness. I remember playing with Barbie and all her stuff for hours and hours, but I was a bit older than Katie. Besides, there is all that rhetoric about warping young girls' ideas of normal body size. Sigh.

I go to Walmart's and look at their toy selection. Really, I would rather give her art lessons or something that will help her develop her creativity. But I am so far away, and I don't want to press her parents into having extra transportation duty. So I text my daughter-in-law to see what I should get. Yup - the Barbie would be perfect. OK.

I head home with the beautiful Barb tucked beneath my arm. I search my storage drawers for wrapping paper. Apparently I don't have anything left of my once copious supply. Trip to the dollar store to find birthday wrapping for a little girl, then on to the post office to box it up and send it out.

I arrive at the post office and enter an empty foyer. Impossible! No one in line for stamps? I decide to ask the clerk for advice about which box to use. She sets the wrapped present on her scale to see if it makes sense to send it priority (where I don't have to pay for the box) or flat rate (where I do have to pay for the box in addition to the postage). It will be the same cost either way if I can make it fit in the small priority box.

I unfold the box and try stuffing the present inside. It is just a bit too large. Hum. I stand there contemplating. A gentleman comes in and wanders past, then comes back and offers help. Really? I am the all time guru at packing, having moved so often. I can fit the contents of an entire household into a small pickup truck. This is really not possible.

But he bends the box just so, bellying out the middle and violating the end folds just enough and voila! He has managed to cram it inside. The clerk doesn't bat an eye at the unusual packaging. She weighs and stamps it and tosses it into the bin for North Carolina. Who knew you could bend the rules of a rigid cardboard box and make it do something it was not intended to do? Apparently, my helper.

Go, Barbie - fly to North Carolina and make my Katie smile.