I order almost everything from this one online retailer. It’s convenient. Prices are competitive. And very often their free shipping option arrives within five days. I have ordered enough from them that I have received some weird packaging. All of it has been okay. Until now. I placed a very small order and this is what I got it in. 

Can someone who works at you-know-where explain to me what crazy ass machine learning algorithm was used to pick this oversized box. Don’t get me wrong, everything arrived in good shape and well padded. But holy empty space, Batman, I can fit a small car in here. Just to make this post interesting, I’ll throw in some free arithmetic.

The box they used measured 14 by 9 by 12 inches, approximately. I used a piece of standard 8.5 by 11 inches sheet of paper to get a guestimate on the box size.

• The one package measured 2.24 by 2.24 by 8.5 inches. Was in centimetres on the website and I converted. Sorry, millenials.
• The second package, of which there were four, measured 3 by 3 by 6.14 inches.

So the box had a volume of 1512 inches. The five packages together had a total volume of 264 inches. Do some mathemagics and voila about 17% of the box was used up for cargo. Anyway, I got some free airbag thingies that I can pop and scare people with. And my cats have a new box to play in.