Unboxing 900 Video Mailers
Ok, not exactly 900. If this whole thing is going to work at all, I should start with being honest. I got 860 video mailers in mid-October, and I’m not sure I’m allowed to say where exactly I got them from though. I’m confident it’s entirely legal., I mean, the people who gave them to me were given explicit instructions to get rid of them from the people they belonged to, and I don’t think they specified how/how not to. They mostly just wanted to stop paying for the storage unit.
Of course, what self respecting maker would I be if I didn’t jump at the opportunity to have nearly 900 video screens? So I excitedly said I’d take them, and it wouldn’t take long for me to realize my first mistake. For some context, I live in a one bedroom apartment, and I didn’t have to worry about any roommates getting mad, but what I should have worried about was how much space these things would take up. I mean dang, each box has 20 mailers in it, and there are 43 boxes. When we brought them all into my apartment, we just put them down in my living room and left. But later, I realized that I couldn’t walk around them, or really work with them there. I did laugh for maybe the first day or two when I would turn around from my desk and see them in a big pile, but something had to be done.
My solution: a bad one. Kick the can down the road, and spread the boxes out. Sure, some boxes stayed in my living room, but a good number of them ended up stacked up in my bedroom, maybe 10 in my closet on the porch (I removed the batteries first, although I’m pretty sure they’re all fully discharged at this point), some in the closet where I keep my only shirt, you get the idea. They ended up everywhere, but they seemed more manageable. That was when I hit the second problem: having people over required some explanation either before they came in or pretty much immediately after they took off their shoes. Questions ranged from how much mail I get and why I never open it, to why I would even think this was a good idea, sighs, and my personal favorite, the silent headshake while trying to hold in a laugh. Of course, I tried taking them apart and getting rid of the excessive packaging, but I could only go so fast. Not to mention, at this point we were getting to the time when finals are, and I was also pretty swamped with work.
By now, the whole thing has become a comedy of errors, and I’m going to take another crack at unboxing these things at some point, hopefully soon, but until then I’ll try taking one apart and figuring out what I can. Stay tuned for the guts of the best video mailers that a Chinese factory has to offer!