Is It Wrong to Love a Book Box?

I order a lot of books. I ship a lot of books. I have a lot of bubble wrap, envelopes, cardboard, kraft paper, packing peanuts, and tape. Lots of tape, but that's another blog.

I say all that to say this: I am very, VERY picky when it comes to how my books are packaged, both thems what I sends and thems what I gets. Good, bad, ugly--I've seen 'em all, or at least this is what I thought before this morning.

I'll spare you the rant on bad packaging for now, Gentle Reader, because this post is about the bit of bookish joy I just experienced at receiving a book that was actually shipped--mostly--properly. This is always a nice surprise in itself.

But--the paradigm-shifting part--was the book box used. Amazon, eat your heart out. This puppy uses some sort of tessaract/fractal valmorphanizing technology to SNICK! flap instantly into a shape perfectly adjusted to fit nearly any size of book, and then SNICK! flip back into a flat single sheet, all from merely receiving one's thoughts of boxness or flatness toward the cardboard miracle (well, nearly). I'm enchanted and have wasted several minutes trying to fit my feet into the thing in hopes that it will heal my limp, too. No dice yet in that department, but I remain optimistic and will soon be trying it on my head as well. Oh, and don't worry--I, too, have watched Tron, Dear Reader--I tested it with an orange, first, and am pleased to report no inside-out peely masses of gory fruit goo here.

(re-posted from the myspace blog)