Mystery box exchange with MJCobra

If you’ve never exchanged a box of items with someone you just met on the internet who lives 8,257 miles and 16 hours away from you then you’re not living. I started this blog last year in the middle of winter (or summer for literally everyone else) and I remember sitting on the couch one evening a few months later in September when I got an email. It was from Maddy (here’s a link to her blog, I’m making this really long so you have to click on it. Have you clicked yet? Do it) and I don’t remember why exactly, but I think..? the gist was that we could be friends. I think. I was so excited because I’m old and making friends is impossible for me when I move to a new part of the country or world every 12 minutes. I’m also pretty uncool. I wear a bigfoot shirt with a hole in it on the regular.

But that’s not the point. We kept talking and she said she wanted to do a gift swap where we fill a box full of stuff and send it to each other. So I wrote a list of all the stuff she likes and started collecting things I saw when we went out and piling them into a little bag dedicated to her. That sounds like I was collecting rocks and piles of moss and twigs, but I meant candy and stickers (she loves the things) and toys from Australia.

I had a picture but I don’t want to ruin the surprise so you’ll have to read her post. Click here.

It was impossible to find “Australian” food because it doesn’t exist. They eat British food and they’re also very obsessed with putting a tiny piece of food on a gigantic geometric plate, pouring a drizzle of something over it and calling it “modern”. It looks nice and all, but I like other countries’ method of slopping it on the plate and charging basically nothing for it. It’s delicious!

By November we were ready to send our boxes and hers arrived to me in the middle of the month! Look at how much time she spent on the box alone. If this isn’t a work of art, I don’t know what is.

I was so excited that I had to tear it open once I got home. If you think the pictures are horrible, it’s because they are. It was hard taking pictures before everything disappeared into our bellies.

She knows I like mint and chocolate (staring at this makes me wish I could have some) so sent me a whole bunch of it.

I also mentioned she loves stickers so of course she sent me some. They were some of the most adorable stickers I’ve ever seen in my life. It reunited me with kid me who hoarded stickers and never used them so I could save them for “something special”. Nothing was ever special enough for them.

I remember never using them, so I now find excuses to put stickers on anything I can. They’re so cute, how could I not? Look at those tiny faces.

She also sent pumpkin spice stuff because as far as I know, they don’t have it here in Australia besides at Starbucks and there’s about 3 and a half of them in the entire country. I wasn’t expecting anything from the vegan pumpkin spice cookie because I know how hard making things vegan can be, but oh.. my.. god. I went into a different world when I took a bite out of that thing. I had Sebastian try it and his face went blank. He went there too. It was gone within about 5 minutes.

There was a microwaveable mug cake in there which obviously had to be eaten ASAP. This picture is terrible but it got really tall in the microwave and I have to show you.

Look at that! This was also delicious. Strangely orange, it was more like a carrot than a pumpkin but very good. She also sent a few other vegan goodies which were all good, 2nd favorite place being this PB&J bar.

It was odd and I was unsure how to feel about it when I first saw it. Plus aren’t PB&J’s already vegan anyway? Why make a little cake thing out of it? Well I was just being a hater and I was more than wrong. It’s delicious. I think Sebastian and I gained 15 kg’s each that day. I mean I already eat PB&J’s all the time but this is much better.

One of the best parts was the letter she wrote. It was so sweet and it warmed my heart. She’s one of the coolest most supportive people you could ever meet, no doubt about it.

She also sent me pens which I didn’t take a picture of for whatever reason, but they’re in the bottom of this one. I really hope I didn’t forget anything else 😦 Those pens change colors while you’re writing and it makes it really hard to resist just scribbling all over the paper you’re trying to write on. Once I was done destroying the box and having our mouths demolish everything inside, I found a message at the bottom.

You may be wondering, if I got this package in November, how come I’m writing about it in February? Well I sent mine at the very end of November, and by the time it got to California she was in Washington. Which meant it had to be shipped again. She didn’t get it until about a week ago. Never ship anything at the height of the holiday season. I learned that for everyone who reads this.

Here’s a link to her post about it if you want to see all the things she got and what she wrote (follow her too). I loved doing this, and I appreciate all the thought she put into her box. It was so thoughtful and such an exciting feeling to get a package that made me feel like a kid on Christmas and she’s seriously an amazing person. The only bad part about it all was the fact that I’m pretty sure we were both robbed by the post office for shipping. Australia is the worst place to ship something to and from. Also the guy at the post office basically put 1 shred of tape on it so I hope that was the strongest tape on earth. One time they told me I had to buy an entire packing tape dispenser for one box….. really?? What’s with these people and tape?

Anyway, go enjoy her post.