I know nothing about the products involved, but I assume it was along the lines of "I want a Mac Foo 342, which happens to come in the smallest box, so you can't miss it".
But surely the "I want a Mac Foo 342" is sufficient? The latter part of sentence just adds unnecessary confusion.
I worked selling laptops before, and I honestly wouldn't remember which one came in the smallest box (and they usually came in very similar sized boxes anyway, so likely there would be several different models matching "smallest box" criteria). I think Apple employee was fully justified in their bafflement at the request.
