As I’ve mentioned before, I buy a lot things–mostly kids’ clothes and porcelain–at the Swedish auction site, Tradera. In this morning’s mail I got a package that should have contained a little Mitterteich cream pitcher, but instead was full of shards. Eleven shards, to be exact.

Usually when people send things like that they pack them securely with tape and bubble wrap or other padding, but this was wrapped just in a bit of toilet paper and an outer covering of newspaper, then stuffed in a lightweight cardboard box. No surprise it was crushed in transit, then.

I took a picture and sent it off to the seller telling her what had happened. She wrote back promptly expressing the appropriate dismay and saying that she would refund my money right away. It turns out that she had asked her husband to send it for her, thus the less than stellar packing.

No surprise there, either.