thoughts, words, deeds

cardboard memories

Prompt: What do your think of cardboard boxes, their uses, or abuses? And what memories they may contain, if any?

Well, one thing I can tell you, my life fits fairly neatly in thirty-seven cardboard boxes. Over twenty of those boxes contain books. That doesn’t include clothing and furniture, of course. I still have boxes stacked across one wall of my room. I should get around to opening them, I guess. It’s hard to get the motivation to do so until I need a box somewhere else or if I miss a specific book. That’s why I recently unpacked all my paperback boxes. I was looking for a specific book in a series, and I didn’t find it until the next to last box. At that point, I figured I may as well open the last and call it a night.

I remember as a child, we used to have big boxes of diapers (I’ve mentioned before that I’m oldest of six) in various sizes depending on how old the kid in question was. I used to be able to climb into the biggest box and push myself down the stairs in a kind of primitive sled. My sister (the next youngest—so she was probably about six at the time) was so skinny and flexible that she could contort herself into the baby box. We have picture evidence because my mother was the kind of person who always picked embarrassing photos to blackmail us later.

I’ve moved a lot in my life, so I’ve spent a lot of time packing and unpacking cardboard boxes. They’re useful. I once spent a semester using one as a shelf/bed table (tipped over on its side) because the apartment we were in didn’t have a shelf or a table in the bedroom, and I had books. I like books. They’re much more interesting than cardboard boxes that merely hold books for later.