PACKAGE!

I got an interesting package today. It looked like this.

And it had a label on it that said “broken/messy”. That was a first… I was a little scared to open it up for fear of massive quantities of mold and stink, but the possibility of something salvageable kept me going.

I wasn’t 100% sure at first what was all over my stuff, but it wasn’t moldy or too stinky. I pretty quickly traced it to those Ziploc bags of chocolate. Basically, the entire contents of my box were coated in a layer of liquid chocolate. So that was a nice surprise.

Mom had told me when she sent the box that “the book” would be of “special interest” to me. I had no idea what that meant, but I was definitely intrigued. So I gingerly started pulling items out of the box, hoping to find the book in decent shape. At the VERY bottom of the box, I found the only  book.

I had no idea what was supposed to be so interesting to me about a blank journal. Until I realized that mom had stuck my new credit card (my old one expired last month) inside. Sneaky, sneaky. The melted chocolate all over everything on the top possibly prevented that card from falling into the wrong hands. This is the first box I’ve ever received that didn’t have the contents all jumbled up and massive quantities of tape all over the outside in a frail attempt to hold everything in. Like the customs/post office employees/school guards think they could EVER unpack, inspect, and repack something that my mother packed. PUH-LEASE. She is the master of packing many things into a tight space. Sometimes they just give up and dump everything into a garbage bag and deliver it that way. True story. Anyways, this is the first box I’ve ever received that I’m 99% sure still has its original packing job. So the melted chocolate was, in a way, a good thing.

I didn’t want to carry the 40 pound chocolate soaked box all the way home with me, so I found some plastic bags and put everything in those. I looked like I was coming from the grocery store on the way home. But my bags were FILLED with foods you could never get in Indonesia. BEST. GROCERY. STORE. EVER.

Thankfully, pretty much everything was packaged, so the chocolate didn’t ruin anything except for that cross-stitch fabric in the top center of the photo. Also, I want to point out in mom’s defense that she DID put all of the meltable objects in plastic bags. But somehow, the plastic bags got holes in them. There was also a hole in the cardboard box. So I wonder if maybe something ATE holes in them?? At any rate, this package sat somewhere hot for a loooong time. This is how chocolatey things got.

Also, my chocolate chips pretty much became one GIANT chocolate chip. But I can still cut them up and use them for baking! At least this bag didn’t leak…

So, what did I do about this? Well, some things went straight into the sink for a good washing.

Other things were in cardboard and couldn’t be washed or had holes in their packaging, so they ended up getting repackaged.

And then the chocolates. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized what they were – Lindt Swiss chocolate truffles! My favorite chocolate in the world!! I was NOT about to let any of those go to waste, so I threw all of them in a cake pan and put it in the freezer. Once they’re solidified enough, I’ll transfer them to a bag in the fridge and hopefully be able to eat them!

 

Oh, and as for the journal, all I had to do was brush some dried chocolate off the outside, and it was as good as new!

Thanks, family people, for the awesome package!! I am SO EXCITED for all of this food!! And extremely thankful that you didn’t try to send clothes with the chocolates! : )