The Box Stops Here

My husband and I are engaged in a never ending battle. Not for each other’s hearts or minds or anything significant like that. Rather, it’s what I call the Battle of the Box. You see, he likes to hoard any cardboard boxes that cross over our property line for any reason. There is no good rationale, such as an oncoming cardboard shortage or something logical like the fact that we were preparing to move to another house. His theory is that if we ever need a box to ship something in, we will have the perfect size box readily at our disposal.

Being rational, I cannot see the logic in this. I point out that he ships things maybe twice a year, max. I also point out the other obvious rejoinder, that we get an average of two boxes delivered to our house every week thanks to his nocturnal visits to Overstock.com and similar sites. Thus, if we do need a box, it is likely that we will have just gotten one.

So, because this is a war and because diplomacy has not worked on either side, we’ve both quietly engaged in our own forms of guerilla warfare. For his part he squirrels away his boxes in less and less likely spots every week. For my part, I spend a portion of Thursday, the eve of garbage day, on a search and recovery operation. Were you to pass by my house in the afternoon, you might just see me emerge from the garage or the house, with a victorious grin on my face and one or more cardboard boxes in my hand, on my way to the recycling bin, like a pilgrim headed to Mecca.

I have also begun strategic intervention maneuvers. These involve opening boxes immediately after delivery and before he comes home from work, and recycling the box before it ever gets into his hands!

Unfortunately, he does know the location of my blog, so I can expect him to step up his military action plan, but I am prepared, bring it on baby, just don’t box me in.