Here’s something to break the monotony of your day. Reader Jim sends these pictures of the night stand he ordered from Amazon.com. It came packed not in peanuts, but covered in spray foam insulation. He says it took him half an hour to hack through the sticky stuff to get to the furniture. Weird, yes, but the item did arrive intact… so maybe they’re on to something.

I ordered a maple night stand via Amazon.com. It was actually sold/shipped by one of their vendors called Vision Decor. I was surprised when the package arrived. It was HUGE and it weighed a lot — far larger and heavier than I expected a night stand to be.

It was covered in multiple layers of cardboard and tape. When I finally cut through to the middle I discovered that the entire box had been filled with that spray foam typically used by plumbers and construction workers for insulation. My father-in-law and I spent half an hour hacking through the stuff to finally get to the night stand within. It was tough stuff. And it tended to stick to skin.

Now, I appreciate that my night stand arrived in good condition but I must say that removing the foam insulation was tantamount to carving Mt. Rushmore.

Are you sure that’s a night stand and not an alien facehugger pod? Jim? Jim, are you there?

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