living in cardboard

my life seems to be close to being overtaken by cardboard and cardboard boxes. at least three times a week, i receive deliveries in giant cardboard boxes. each box is then full of pieces of cardboard. these are nice boxes, don't get me wrong. and, i'm grateful that my lab takes so much care when delivering my shipments by shrink-wrapping them, bubble-wrapping them, and then sandwiching them in cardboard. but, i have so much cardboard in my house that i could have a very large bonfire in the backyard fueled exclusively with cardboard. there are actually columns in my house constructed out of stacks of cardboard boxes. it's not exactly my decorative style, but what else can i do? i'm constantly trying to come up with uses for all this cardboard because it seems suck a waste to just pitch it.

i remember a time in my life when cardboard boxes were exciting. my sister and i loved it when a cardboard box came into the house! laura and i would spend hours with that box, constructing just the perfect amount of magic with it. we'd build spaceships, train cars, & treasure chests. best of all were when the giant boxes would appear. in my mind, i remember these boxes as if they were as big as a refrigerator. i can't remember where these boxes came from, but there huge. at one point, we had several of these large boxes. when we were little (and probably still now), i was a bit bossy with my baby sister, so i made all the plans for the uses of these boxes. (i'm sure she loved that.)

well, the moment these giant boxes entered our house, i developed a plan. (perhaps this is where my interest in design and architecture started.) like the project manager i was destined to be, i began hashing out the logistics of how we'd use these boxes. we spent hours on them - cutting doors with working hinges, cutting out windows, & decorating them to be buildings in our town. i'm sure if you asked laura, she'd say i was the construction manager of the project and she was the lowly laborer, but i'll never admit to that. ;)

once the construction phase was complete, laura and i had a perfect cardboard town residing in our basement. our mom let us bring down our big wheels to the basement, and we pedaled all through our perfect town. we loved it. we'd cram ourselves in those buildings with our cabbage patch dolls and care bears and play together all afternoon. it was truly fun. and it was truly magical.

so, now i'm thinking maybe i need to send my boys down to the basement with a stack of cardboard boxes and let them have at it. i doubt their town would be half as cool as our's, but they might surprise me. actually, maybe i should just head down there with them, sporting my hard hat. i'm sure they could use a construction manager.