Take a gorgeous art print. Roll it on the OUTSIDE of a super-flexible foam-rubber baton. Apply one extremely loose layer of bubble-wrap to the outside of this. Add an address label, fling it into the void, in the tender clutches of the post office, and -- is there any surprise when this happens:
What can you do? International shipping to return it to sender inside a stout tube that'd get it home in a way that precludes some certifiable nincompoop alleging, "You did the damage yourself!" would cost more than just buying a new one ... yet, if I did just buy another, the same lunatic would package it the same way for shipping, and we'll have a repeat performance. Waste of time; "throwing good money after bad," as my grandma used to say.
Well, phooey. Some people's children shouldn't be left alone in a room with scissors, tape, bubble-wrap and an object to to mail.
Also, the post office seems to find an obscene glee in identifying a badly-packaged item and wreaking the maximum amount of havoc on it ... as if it's the recipient at fault: because it's the poor old recipient who's going to reap all the disappointment and inconvenience.
Well, phooey. Hang on, I said that already.
