Welcome back to I’m Gonna Pack It. Quick one today.

Candice has somewhere to be in 20 minutes. We have 14 items across 11 orders sitting on the shelf, none of them difficult, and the entire premise of this video is whether I can get them all in boxes before she walks out the door. Piece of cake, she says. I might be the holdup.

The clock is on. Here’s how it went.

The hardest pack first — the LSU buyer-built bundle

[0:08] 4-item LSU memorabilia lot — $62.96. A buyer found two listings on our store and bundled them: the 2019 LSU Tigers National Championship SnapBack with the matching Joe Burrow football poster, plus the 2023 LSU NCAA Baseball National Championship hat with the corresponding Paul Skenes baseball poster. Football and baseball, hat and poster, paired up.

We didn’t merchandise it that way. The buyer did it themselves, and it’s a better-looking pairing than what we would’ve put together. They figured it out. We didn’t make it that good.

Hardest pack of the day because of the awkward shape — two posters need protection, two hats want different cradle space, and the order can’t ride flat without the poster tubes off-balance. Started here on purpose. Get the awkward one out of the way and the rest is rhythm.

The speed-pack rotation

Working through the rest of the run with the bare minimum of pack-decision narration:

• [2:16] Sorelle Watermelon Tanning Drops — sealed bottle, bubble mailer, done.
• [3:30] LEGO Bionicle Toa Hordika 18-minifigure lot — 864 box. The 864 is the workhorse this run; I went back to it three times.
• [4:21] Destro Weapons Supplier (ROC Rise of Cobra) G.I. Joe figure — needed a 1086 because the figure’s a hair too tall for an 864, and I did a quick on-the-fly cross-cut flap-fold to bring the box height down. Not my prettiest tape job; the tape kind of camouflages it. That’s a little gnarly-looking — let me get one more. It’ll travel fine.
• [6:48] Urban Decay 24/7 MILDEW eye pencil — the eyeliner-of-the-day. Same dollar-a-whack lot we keep selling out of, just a different shade. I keep telling Candice we need to find a pallet of these.
• [7:34] RCA Digital-to-Analog Converter Box (new in open box) — straightforward.
• [9:29] Classique Sling-Back pointed-toe flats, ivory and gold, size 7.5 — Ground Advantage shoebox.
• [10:47] Kurt “Airtight” Schnurr — G.I. Joe Hostile Environment Specialist — second figure pack of the day, second cross-cut resize. By the second one I’ve got the rhythm.
• [13:07] RCA Digital-to-Analog Converter Box (used) — second of the same model, also straightforward, and the buyer who landed both will figure out what to do with two of them.
• [15:03] Roger’s Cajun Cookbook, 1989, signed by Vernon Roger — slim hardcover, easy. (For a South Louisiana pack day this was the most South-Louisiana item on the shelf.)
• [16:41] Dr. Groot Hair Thickening tube — last item. Bagged for protection just in case, into an 8 box, diagonally — which started a side conversation we’ll get to in a minute.

Quick-pack technique notes — the things that saved time

A pack-day is faster when the box choice is right the first time. A few things that mattered today:

• 864 vs 1086 box selection. The 864 fits a single small-to-medium item with a little padding. The 1086 buys you height. Most of today’s run was the 864; the figures and the converter boxes needed the 1086.
• The cross-cut flap-fold. When a 1086 is just too tall for the figure inside, cut the long flaps across, fold the cardboard inward, and tape over the seam. Faster than swapping to a non-standard box and a lot tidier than padding the void with a pile of paper. The tape camouflages the cut.
• Inside resize without the dedicated resizer tool. The Uline-style resizer is a luxury, not a necessity. Score with a knife, fold with the body of the cutter, tape across. No extra tool involved. This whole video is shot without the resizer.
• The daily UPS pickup constraint. We try to make sure at least one box per day goes UPS, because we have a daily pickup and we want to give our driver a reason to keep coming. Most days that happens organically — Ground Advantage has been getting more competitive on the bigger boxes, but UPS still wins on certain weight classes. (USPS rate increase Saturday — I’m glad we’re packing today then.)

The sandwich-cut tangent

Last item. I’m wedging a Dr. Groot tube into an 8-cube box on the diagonal, and I say “diagonally” out loud in a particular voice, and Candice catches it. You caught that, huh? Yep. I’m thinking about Ryan on the podcast — he holds an opinion about sandwich geometry.

The bit, for the record:

• A square sandwich cut down the middle has eight corners (four per half).
• Cut on the diagonal, you only have six corners. Fewer corners.
• The question is whether corners are a good thing. Candice’s position: when you bite a sandwich, the corner is the ideal first bite. So fewer corners is bad. Cut straight across, more corners.
• Candice’s actual practice: quarters with toothpicks. Especially when she’s eating on the road, picking Molly up or running an errand. Little bitty squares. Maximum corner.

Ryan votes diagonal. Candice votes quarters. I’m somewhere in the middle and I just packed the Dr. Groot diagonally because the box wanted it that way, not because I was making a statement.

The result — 18 minutes, 44 seconds

Last box taped, label slapped, and I look at the clock: 18:44.

Bet won, with about a minute and change to spare. Candice rolls out for the afternoon. The 14 items are stacked on the dock for the carrier. The pack day mixed in nicely with the rest of the day — we’d already done the morning garage sale (the $10-for-two-trash-bags fill-a-bag haul), eaten lunch, gotten “some nice little listings up,” filmed a Shed Flips video, and Candice has another three shorts to put on TikTok before the night’s done.

Quick packing days are a gift. I’ll take an easy 14-pack between the 40-pack Mondays. Most days don’t have a 20-minute deadline; today did, and it gave the run a tempo.

Thanks for hanging out in the pack room with us. We’ll see y’all in the next one.