Amy was disappointed with the condition that her bras arrived in from Kohl’s. Men, she insists, are in charge of packing the store’s lingerie. Or–let’s be inclusive here–people who have never needed to wear an article of clothing that has underwires. Or a molded cup. Not even all women understand the care with which delicately-constructed undergarments need to be handled.

Only that’s not all. Her neighborhood mail carrier apparently saw a soft, squishy plastic bag of a package and said, “I’ll just cram that in the mailbox. It’s squishy, and will fit if I shove it hard enough.” It did. Hurray?

Amy explained her situation:

Men clearly do the packing at the good ole Kohl’s warehouse. Any woman would know that bras need to be boxed in order to be shipped to keep the cup from becoming crushed or misshapen, which ruins the bra. I had ordered six bras off of Kohl’s a week and a half ago and never took a second thought to the fact that it would arrive in a box for that reason. I must have over thought that one.

The bras arrived in a plastic shipping bag; no padding, nothing extra to keep them from becoming deformed. To boot, there was a [hole] in the packaging, which can be seen in the attached picture. Being as these are bras, I was lucky to open them and see that none were torn. There, was, however, a different issue.

Had the bras been put in a box they would have been left on our porch. Honestly, with a package of this size, common sense would dictate that it should be left on the porch, but not with our rogue gang of mail people. They decided to take the time to somehow stuff a bag full of six bras into the mailbox. It was so full that the lid was unable to be fully closed, which should have been their first clue that maybe it didn’t fit.

Needless to say, more than one of the bras had badly misshapen cups that were deformed to the point where they couldn’t be worn. I called Kohl’s, and after the woman on the phone stopped laughing when I told her men must have packed them, she told me that I could return them to any store and re-order them at the same sale price that I got them at since the issue was their fault. They would, however, likely be mailing the new ones in the same packaging, leaving me with the same problem. Not only that, but now I have to make an unexpected trip to the store to physically show them the damage on the bras, as they suggest not sending them back since they could be ruined in return shipping. This made sense to someone, somewhere, I’m sure.

I’ve never been a fan of those thin plastic bags for shipping, because it’s so easy for items, such as clothing, to be torn if the bag gets torn. I understand that it’s used to save on shipping costs, and it’s okay for some things, but not bras or other items that can be ruined if crushed.

I don’t know, Amy. I’ve encountered plenty of women in my time who have no idea how laundry works, either. This is a case where site-to-store shipping would be ideal: you make the trip to the store that you’d have to make to take the crushed bras back anyway, and your underthings arrive un-crushed. We can only hope.

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