The Marriage Manual probably doesn’t have a chapter on packaging, so help me out here. Is this situation a Mars/Venus thing or simply one more example of how diametrically opposite my Dearly Beloved and I are in our thinking on yet another subject, that of being saved.
When I order something, say from Amazon, and it arrives in one of those sturdy brown corrugated cardboard boxes, I save the box if it looks like one I may be able to use in the future. I also save gift boxes that flatten and store easily and stash them on a closet shelf with wrapping paper. Certain experiences are too horrific to ever repeat, like standing in line for the right-sized gift box from “Gift Wrap,” the service located in the most obscure corner of large department stores, where the Half-Speed Is Our Creed motto deters all but The Truly Desperate from actually forking over a purchase to be wrapped-while-u-wait. And wait. And wait.
DB seems clearly baffled by my stash of boxes. He will shake his head in amusement as I nest the boxes and stick them in a corner of the garage or fiddle with the corners of a gift box to flatten it for storage.
I get the message: You are a packrat, my awesomely fabulous wife, but I will say nothing about this particular little quirk.
Whenever I use one of those boxes, I point out that I am subtracting one from the pile, proof that my quirky efforts were justified.
A few weeks ago DB opened his new radio/speaker/iPhone charger/clock device and set it up on a bookcase shelf. He left the box sitting beside it.
Eventually I realized I was dusting around a box, so I looked inside to see why it might still be there. The instruction book and some of those what-the–hell-is-all this parts and cords were inside. I put all the contents in a ziplock bag, labeled, and placed it in the cabinet part of the bookcase– behind doors but conveniently near the appliance.
Dropping the box on top of the recycling bin, I went off to run errands, but returned to find that it had been brought inside, set on a table in the downstairs playroom.
DB informed me that he was saving the box because he might need it.
But I saved everything that was in it, I told him proudly.
I may need to look at the picture sometime, he said, by way of explanation.
Isn’t that why instruction books are included? The one that had come with this item remained, of course, hermetically sealed in the original plastic. We have a drawerful of such manuals, all untouched by human hands.
In the garage, however, in case he ever wants to look at the picture on the box, DB has amassed this collection:
I can understand why one would have the box nearby when assembling an item, but keeping it forever….? I’m thinking of flattening the boxes and hanging them on the garage wall for his perusal and enjoyment. Personally, I find this an exception to the axiom of a picture being worth a thousand words.
After all, the thousand words will fit inside a Ziploc bag.
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