boxed house

I impulsively ordered a 45-can capacity cooler off Amazon the other day. We don’t really need a cooler, but at Scarlett’s soccer tournament last week, we could’ve used one – for her knee ice packs and our uneaten leftovers from spending three days in a hotel.

Instead, I had to toss a whole box of Buc-ee’s chicken fingers and fries because my tiny cooler bag couldn’t hack it.

It was a sad moment as I laid that greasy, beautiful box on top of the soccer field trash can – the beaver staring back at me accusingly. Those fries were really good, dammit.

This shall not happen again

So, to prevent future food waste (and tend to my daughter’s bum ass knee, of course), I took the plunge and bought a cooler.

[Side note, holy hell coolers are EXPENSIVE! Plastic boxes with wheels should not cost more than a refrigerator for fuck’s sake.]

Days later, the cooler arrives on our porch in a giant cardboard box. Evie’s eyes lit up.
“Wha-ah-at’s that?!” she asked.

“It’s not for you,” I told her. Every package that lands here, she immediately assumes is hers. She promptly lost interest and walked off.

I opened the box, admired my expensive-ass cooler, and then put it away until it was needed. Dust will likely have a chance to gather on it but let’s not focus on that.

I looked at the box and was immediately taken back to my childhood. That’s a good size, I thought to myself. 

I removed all the packaging and left the box in the middle of the foyer floor. I wanted to see if Evie or Marina would see the box as I did. I wondered if they would see it’s potential. 

Did all kids play with boxes?

If you were like me as a child, you might have seen the potential, too. Boxes weren’t just cardboard cubes, waiting to be broken down and sent to the recycling pile. Boxes were spaceships, houses, or boats. Potential toys just waiting for a bit of imagination, crayons, and scissors.

[Side note: yes, I’ve written all this without making a single sexual pun about boxes. Look at me. Mature. But if you want that inappropriate humor, I got you, Here’s a link to my made-for-adults children’s story “Me & My Box.”]

Back to playing with boxes. I would spend what seemed like hours playing with them – my brain loving the fact that I could make them into whatever I wanted. 

I think a lot of kids did this in the 20th century. Not just poor kids like me who fished refrigerator boxes out of the community garbage pile to turn into my own 1-bedroom apartment. Richer kids do it too – just to piss off their parents by enjoying the trash brown box more than the present itself.

At my house, the cooler box sat there for 2 days, ignored and unused. 

On the second day of neglect, a little perturbed, I gave up and dragged the box toward the kitchen – ready to slice its bottom and flatten it to the ground. Evie was in the living room on her tablet. She looked over at me, pulled out of her show by the sound of cardboard scraping on the floor.

I saw her watching and decided to guide her toward the action I’d hoped she would’ve taken on her own.

“I used to play with boxes when I was little,” I told her. 

Evie frowned. “Why?” 

“Because my family didn’t have as much money as we do now. I didn’t have a lot of toys. Boxes were basically free and are fun to play with.”

As I was speaking to her, she set down her tablet and walked over to me and the box. She was silent for a second and then said, “That’s kinda sad.” Her empathy hugged the 5-year-old in me. I don’t want my kids to ever feel sorry for me, but I do want them to realize that life isn’t a smooth ride for a lot of people, including kids.  

She looked at the box, trying to see what I saw. “How did you play with it?”

“It can be anything,” and I told her some of the possibilities. 

“A house!” she shouted, and she immediately asked how we could make this transformation happen. “Well, these flaps here could be your porch,” I said, “and I could cut out openings on the sides for windows and then you could draw in whatever you want. Like a table or curtains.”

The box was no longer on its way to the blue bin in the garage. It had been given a new lease on life. I cut out the windows as she accessorized. Minutes passed. While setting up her kitchen area, she asked out of nowhere: “Did you have food growing up?”

Hmmm. I thought back to my childhood of food stamps. We were poor, but I don’t recall being hungry. Yes, there was definitely food; my round size starting at the age of 6 or 7 confirmed this. 

“Well, yeah. We did,” I explained to her, “but not as much food as we have now.” 

“That’s sad,” she repeated, but then she brightened. “But now you have more food!” 

“Yes, Mommy worked for it,” I told her. Things could have turned out differently. But I didn’t let them. 

No more questions to be had, we finished the boxed house together, complete with a blanket carpet, doorbell, and a “NO BOYS ALLOWED” sign on the front at Evie’s request – cackling that now Daddy couldn’t come in.