My fried brain cells

Admit it. You figured this was going to be another “OMG I overdid it at SXSW” post, didn’t you? Well, you couldn’t be more wrong.

It all started a few weeks ago. The Core77 Design blog pointed me to a very cool little company called Giant Microbes. They make stuffed animals. Actually, stuffed microbes. Black Death, Mange, Mad Cow. All sorts of cuddly microbes organized into categories like Venerials, Exotics, Calamities, and Maladies.

Each microbe is available as a 5″-7″ plush toy, and in a plastic petri dish containing 3 mini-microbes.

I was immediately smitten. I went with the innocuous Brain Cells (found in the Corporeals category). I ordered 2 plush toys and 2 petri dishes. I was pretty sure this would be a perfect gift for someone to be determined at a later date. And of course I had to have my own set.

I get deliveries frequently enough that I don’t always know what’s arrived until I open it. When FedEx delivered a shoebox-sized, lightweight box not long ago, this was the case. It clearly wasn’t from Amazon. The mailing label looked odd — I think maybe “burned?” may have crossed my mind, but just didn’t make enough sense to stick. Mostly I noticed the ridiculous amount of packing tape used to seal this box that weighed practically nothing.

I cut the box open and was first hit with the smell. A rancid smell — like stale burnt plastic. Inside were two items sheathed in bubble wrap. The bubble wrap was brown and that weird combination of melted and brittle. And there were the two plush toy neurons, looking pretty dismal, with singed soma and crispy dendrites.

I was pretty sure Giant Microbes wouldn’t have sent me stuff this way. All I could figure was FedEx had a fire somewhere along the way, and my package had been on the edge of that fire. The box got burned, but not badly enough to write it off, so someone cut the mailing lable out (cardboard and all), repacked the goods without noticing they were damaged (because after all, how many people would know the difference between a pristine stuffed brain cell and a damaged one?) and went overboard on the packing tape.

So I contact FedEx to explain the situation. I got a very staid, monotone rep going throught the script. “OK, ma’am, and can you tell me the contents of the package?” I proceeded to explain it all, then pointed out that I couldn’t be too upset, because I was enjoying the irony of receiving fried brain cells… The guy totally cracked up. He asked me the value of the contents, laughing through it all. I said it was probably under $100, and he asked if it would be ok of they sent me $100. Of course it would. Easy as pie.

Well, since then FedEx has written saying, on second thought, they’d like documentation. So now I have pictures, and I found the receipt. Not doubt they’ll reimburse me in the end, but I wanted the good customer service experience to be the end of the story.

Where was that fire, though? This was no little singe — this was damage from flames. Were other people’s packages damaged?

Still. Fried brain cells. Gotta love it :)