I must be color blind

I was all excited when Amazon announced its decision to "go green". I like "green". The husband drives a Prius. I use phosphate-free laundry detergent. I don't go anywhere without reusable grocery bags. My sad looking gardens are always organic (not because they're organic- because I lack a green thumb).

Unfortunately, I think Amazon has failed to read any of the books on conservation that it lists on its site.

I order books pretty often. It's cheaper than library fines, and the nearest book store is a 30 mile drive each way. Plus, Susan Wise Bauer keeps telling me I should write in my books.

Apparently, Amazon's idea of "green" is to take several books and shrink wrap them in plastic.

Sure, one could argue that this is a good idea in case a package is left on someone's doorstep in a downpour, but I'm not buying it. I've yet to meet a mail carrier who doesn't carry plastic bags for bad weather. Growing up, my mailman used to put our packages in our grill. :-) And there are always those handy dandy orange notices.

But the shrink wrap is small (non) peanuts compared to my latest order.

M is still struggling with number and letter reversals, so I ordered cute wall charts to put up. For $1.99 each, it was a great way to earn free shipping on the meat of my order (Laurie Carlson's Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening, and School Specialty Publishing's The Complete Book of Time and Money). Plus, they were buy 3 get 1 free, so I picked out 4.

First, I get notification that the coins chart will ship separately. My $1.99 purchase ($1.50 after the B3G1 deal) will get its own box, its own shipping fee (on Amazon's tab), and a solo journey to my home.

Then I get notice that the manuscript chart will ship separately.

2 hours later, I get another notice that the months of the year chart will be shipped separately, as well.

And the next day, the 4th goes out the same.

$6, 4 boxes, 4 trips.
Not to mention the plastic-wrapped books still waiting to be shipped!
But it gets better.

I don't have home mail delivery. Our development has group boxes. They also have jumbo boxes, where fairly large packages can be left. Today, I open my mailbox and find a key to one of the big mailboxes. And this is what I find.

A 19x13x14 box...

For a single $1.99 kiddie poster.

But that's not all I found.
It appears that one of the other identically sized posters had to be shipped in a tube that can't fit into the mailbox that fit the 19x13x4 box with plenty of room to spare.

Since there is no "missing you" at a group mailbox, this means I will have to drive 8 miles each way to pick up the damn poster.

But first, I'm waiting to see what comes tomorrow. No sense making 3 trips to the PO if the rest happen to be in ginormous mail tubes!

It's not easy being green.