Ordered Mary Poppins, Got Kim Jong Un Instead: The Costume Mix-Up That Broke the Internet

There are online shopping mistakes.

Then there are international-diplomatic-incident-level online shopping mistakes.

A Melbourne mother recently ordered a Mary Poppins costume for her daughter's school Book Week parade. The plan was simple: hat, coat, umbrella and a little Disney magic.

What arrived instead was something rather different.

A Kim Jong Un costume.

Not Mary Poppins.

Not Bert the chimney sweep.

Not even another children's book character.

North Korea's Supreme Leader.

From Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to Supreme Leader

The family had ordered a "Musical Nanny Deluxe" Mary Poppins costume from Australian retailer CostumeBox for their 10-year-old daughter ahead of a school Book Week parade.

The costume retails for about A$60 and comes with the familiar coat, skirt, hat and bow tie associated with the beloved literary and film character.

Instead, when the parcel arrived, the family found a Kim Jong Un costume, complete with the North Korean leader's trademark look.

It's difficult to imagine two costumes that are further apart on the cultural spectrum.

One teaches children to tidy their rooms with a spoonful of sugar.

The other governs a nuclear-armed state.

The Email Every Customer-Service Team Dreads

Unsurprisingly, the girl's family was not thrilled.

The frustrated mother contacted the company and demanded an explanation.

"You sent me the wrong costume! My daughter needed the Mary Poppins costume for Book Week, and you sent me a Kim Jong-un costume!" the parent wrote in an email later shared online. The message noted that the child had her school parade in just two days and was "absolutely gutted."

You can almost hear the panic.

Book Week waits for nobody.

Meanwhile, Somewhere in Australia...

The funniest part of the story may involve a second customer.

Because if one family received Kim Jong Un instead of Mary Poppins, logic suggests someone else received Mary Poppins instead of Kim Jong Un.

And that's exactly what appears to have happened.

The company later revealed that the customer who had actually ordered the Kim Jong Un costume was heading to collect his parcel to check whether he had accidentally become the owner of a Victorian nanny outfit.

Imagine opening a parcel expecting a North Korean dictator and finding Julie Andrews.

The CEO's Response Was Almost Better Than the Mix-Up

Most corporate apologies are painfully predictable.

This one was not.

CostumeBox CEO Nikki Yeaman responded publicly with two possible explanations.

The first?

A communist uprising inside the warehouse.

The second?

A simple labelling error.

"So ... you can choose your own adventure," she joked online, suggesting either a "small but determined communist uprising" had taken place among warehouse workers or two shipping labels had accidentally been switched.

Needless to say, the second explanation was the official one.

The Internet Immediately Picked a Side

The family wasn't laughing.

The internet absolutely was.

Once the story spread online, social media users treated it as the sort of accidental comedy that only the internet can produce.

Some suggested the child should simply attend the parade dressed as Kim Jong Un.

Others argued she would stand out far more than yet another Mary Poppins.

One commenter pointed out that while everyone else would be arriving as book characters, she could arrive as "the Supreme Leader." Another joked that people should spare a thought for the person expecting Kim Jong Un and receiving Mary Poppins instead.

For many readers, the mental image was simply too funny to ignore.

Did the Girl Finally Get Her Mary Poppins Costume?

Thankfully, yes.

According to the company, the family contacted customer service early in the morning and a replacement costume was packed and dispatched via Australia Post Express on the same day.

The retailer said it expected the correct outfit to arrive in time for the Book Week parade.

Which means the story appears to have ended happily.

Or perhaps not quite.

Because let's be honest.

Years from now, nobody will remember the day a girl dressed as Mary Poppins.

But everyone will remember the day she almost went to school as Kim Jong Un.

The Real Winner? The Story Itself

Every Book Week produces its share of wizards, pirates, princesses and literary heroes.

Very few produce a viral international costume scandal.

In an era where online shopping mistakes usually involve the wrong size or the wrong colour, this one achieved something special.

It turned a routine shipping error into one of the internet's most delightfully bizarre stories.

After all, how often does a parcel travel halfway across a country and somehow transform a magical nanny into a geopolitical leader?

As mix-ups go, that's practically supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.