If Buell Wesley Frazier was a witting conspirator (preferably with just self-described Marxist and former sharpshooting Marine Lee Harvey Oswald to keep it nice and simple), he could have planned to say afterwards, if asked, "Gosh, Lee had told me the previous afternoon that he was gonna pick up some curtain rods from the Paine residence, and since the package looked to me to be only 24" to 28.5" in length when I kinda glanced at it over my shoulder and out of the corner of my eye real quick-like on the back seat of my car this morning, I figured that's what it was, especially after I asked him, 'What's in that twenty-four-inch to twenty-eight-and-a-half-inch-long package you put on the back seat before we got into my 1954 Chevy sedan, Lee?' and he said, 'Don't you remember, You Big Dummy, I told you yesterday TWENTY-FOUR TO TWENTY-EIGHT-AND-A-HALF-INCH-LONG CURTAIN RODS!!!!'"
What would 19-year-old dumbass Frazier have added to a conspiracy - just to offer some convoluted explanation that Oswald was carrying a package too short to be the rifle but was in fact the curtain rods that were never found? And why would Oswald then deny having said anything about curtain rods? Whatever one may think of Oswald, I see him as far too intelligent to have trusted 19-year-old dumbass Frazier with anything. Or is the theory that Frazier was in fact the shooter? Either way, I'm having a hard time making sense of it.
Now that I realize Randle originally did say 3 feet, I lean toward this being the reality, Frazier locking himself into a much shorter length during Odum's visit, and Randle playing along for Frazier's sake. I can't say I find this entirely plausible - she seemed adamant at the WC when she seemingly could have danced out of it by saying "Oh, I really can't be sure - somewhere between two and three feet" - but it's the only explanation that seems plausible to me other than my original "They both simply didn't pay that much attention and were simply mistaken."
I am now 11 minutes past my bedtime, so if I don't sign off now Martin will be accusing me of living in Australia. G'night, mate.