Here at Consumerist, we have seen some seriously ridiculous example of shipping gone wrong. Battered boxes, extraneous packing material, you name it. But 18 flat cardboard containers shipped in 18 separate other boxes? Color us totally bewildered.

Consumerist reader Karl has also seen hilarious examples on this very site, but he wrote in with a story that goes above and beyond wasteful.

He says his girlfriend ordered 18 cardboard magazine files, the kind that come flat and are quickly expanded to hold files and yes, magazines. So he says he was pretty surprised to come home to their apartment and see 18 boxes stacked up, each one containing lots of bubble wrap and one flat cardboard magazine holder. One. In. Each. Box.

He writes:

We’re pretty speechless. We called Office Depot to ask why they would mail 18 folded, cardboard boxes INSIDE OF 18 OTHER CARDBOARD BOXES, AND stuff them all to the brim with bubble wrap, and they pretty much had no idea. The CSR did seem appalled on the phone, however.

I’m hoping they at least come to pick up all of the boxes, write our apartment manager a letter of apology, and maybe bake her some cookies if they actually dumped all of these 1 lb. boxes off in her office. Are we ever buying anything from Office Depot again (at least online)? Probably not!

Those boxes would make a pretty great fort, at the very least.

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