The Evil Eye Cafe: Cardboard Anonymous

Hello. My name is Jennifer and I have a problem with cardboard boxes.

I'm not a pack rat. I am often chided by my family as having no sentimental feelings for things at all. Books, toys, clothes, knick-knacks. It doesn't matter. If we haven't used it in awhile, I find a new home for it, sell it on Ebay, give to charity or pitch it. Nothing gives me quite the satisfaction as cleaning out a closet or drawer and having a bag of leftovers to show for it.

But I am pack rattish about one thing. Cardboard boxes. I cannot throw away a cardboard box easily. When the basement flooded last year along with losing all the appliances and tools, the water melted down my small mountain of collected boxes. I really can't explain it except to say that when I have an empty box, all I can think is, "We are going to need just this size box soon. I should keep it." When we were doing serious Ebay selling, we did need boxes of all sizes. But it's been awhile since either of us sold anything, so the collection in the basement just got bigger and bigger.

I wrote the other day that the flood was just over a year ago now. When I went down in the basement that very evening, right back in the same spot was a new mountain of boxes. It only took a year to get them all back and more. The Man said they had to go. The kids said they had to go. I relented. They had to go.

Over in the city parking lot is a recycling dumpster for cardboard only. I had The Boy flatten out the collection and load them into the van.

The Man drove me out to the dumpster and helped me load them in. I hated every moment of it.

Then it was done. The corner of the basement was empty. We were box-less. The next week The Man said, "I know I don't have any right to ask, but do we have any boxes?" All I could do was laugh.

But I think I'm cured now. I still put boxes in the basement, but I flatten them first and then stack them. Today, the stack was big enough for me to return to the dumpster, alone, and drop off all of this: