Thankfully, I can have things shipped to my work place.

My wife wanted a new vacuum cleaner, so I bought a Dyson from Woot. My plan was for the big Woot box to arrive and sit there, unopened, driving my wife crazy wondering what it was for a couple of weeks until I let her open it on her birthday. (Disclaimer: I'm not the guy who usually buys cleaning implements for his wife's birthday. She really, really wanted this.)

I realized my plan was foiled when I got a call at work from my wife, who wanted to know why we just got a big box from Woot with "VACUUM" printed on it.

A coworker told me yesterday that his wife found her Amazon Kindle Fire sitting on the front porch... in a Kindle Fire outer shipping carton. (I don't think I've ever gotten other than a standard Amazon box... and I order a LOT from Amazon.)

@reemus: Now that you mention it... I once had the postman hand me a box that said "looks like you got a speaker from Woot.com!" Made me feel a little privacy-violated, even though I'm not a big privacy nut and could care less if people knew I bought a speaker!

We try to be very careful about these things. I work from home, so get all the mail/packages. My wife has many things shipped to her office, so I don't see the boxes. Also, since I do the bills, I don't look at the individual payments for our accounts.. just the totals. That way, although I may know what she's spending, I don't know on what or how many things.

I was just looking through the Woot questions, when I heard the doorbell ring twice. A sure sign that a package has arrived. But, I was not expecting any packages. So we brought it in and looked at the box in wonderment. Then we read the big letters on the box: Retro Hot Air Popper Color: Red. Then my wife realized that her sister must have sent it as a family gift for xmas. I will still act surprised in front of my kids on the 25th, but the mystery is gone.

@reemus: Yep. That's blown a few surprises for us here this month. My stocking will have a Sansa, and my husband gave up any sense of pretense about my "Binge" hoodie - he tagged it: "To: Thumperchick, From: Santawoot" - though, after the sansa, I've been making a point of looking only at the name on the shipping label - if it's to him, it goes in his office. I don't want to know. But some of the boxes are so freaking obvious.

Well, I apparently got a Kindle Fire for Christmas since it says so on the outside of the shipping box. I realize they want to advertise their products like crazy but if that was sitting on the doorstep outside someone's apartment, it might very well go missing before the recipient gets home. Mine was delivered to a friend of our's house so it arrived safely.

I once had to wrap a quilt rack. I was only moderately successful. I made my friend promise that her husband would remove it from the car and take it inside.

I got the mandolin slicer from woot for my husband's Christmas. Normally woot just has the small white label with the contents. Not this time, huge black letters proclaiming mandolin slicer on every side!! Thankfully the husband didn't read it because he didn't think it was for him! I was able to throw a blanket over it and it was a wonderful surprise!