Among Friends

[Queen of shop]

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@on the bay wrote:

@Queen of shop,

Gosh your post make me feel so at home at my mothers. I guess there were so many of us with parents from the depression era who in one way or another, (to save or not to save) had a great influence on us.

And can we talk about papers?!

Going thru my parents receipts,every paper that ever came into the house from years back, newspaper articles, I have a fear of having my children go through too many papers!

But love them we did, very much.

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@on the bay  Yes, I did surely indeed love my parents very much. Mom was a pip though, in a good way. She was just a loving packrat. Dad wasn't like that. He was neat  and fussy with how he kept his things.

When mom passed, not very long ago, she almost made 100, there were soooo many pieces of paper and receipts. Got through it though with some tears and some laughs knowing how she was.

She was organized chaos. lol. She could put her hands on and find anything that she needed. To this day, I don't know how she did it, but she did. Her filling and storing system were all in her head. Ha. We could never figure it out. As for myself, I have files and folders for everything.

[on the bay]

@Foxxee, and all~

Here is the Erma Bombeck essay we would roll out every Christmas and read to my mother, and now read in her honor, she being the original cutter outer of the actual newspaper article in the Washington Post.

"This is the time of year when the box savers of the world have their finest hour.

You know who they are. They're the ones who squirrel away every box and carton they ever receive and bestow the gift of immortality upon it.There is something arrogant about people who save boxes. They remind me of the sanctimonious people who always have their ticket and the right change at the parking garage, or whose car is always in gear when the traffic light changes.

The carton queen in our family is my mother. There is nothing you can name that she does not have an empty box for. Want to wrap a piano? Go to Mother's. Want to surprise someone with a load of firewood? Mother has the carton for it. Buying a goal post for your grandson? Mother can wrap it.

Box savers are not only arrogant about their habit, they are downright evangelistic. I remember the first time I gave my mother a pair of earrings wrapped in a rectal thermometer box. I thought she'd be choked up that I found a box with cotton. Instead, she gave me the Heaven-knows-I-did-the-best-I-could look and said, "Why didn't you come to me for a box?"

I've watched her at birthday celebrations and Christmases. She is like a minesweeper. No sooner is the paper off the present than she is winding the ribbon around her fingers and smoothing the creases out of the wrapping paper. As soon as the recipient holds the gift up for everyone to see, the box disappears to be recycled. It will appear again for the next 35 years . . . somewhere . . . holding something.

This week when I discovered a jogging suit would not fit into a shoe box, I did something I do not take lightly. I went to Mother's for a box.

She flipped on the light in her closet, and I thought, If Tutankhamen's mother had a tomb, this would have been it. I had never seen such a box glut. There were boxes in boxes, boxes for folding chairs, lampshades, tubes for posters and cartons for mattresses. There were boxes singed with black where she had pulled them from the fire.

She turned to me. "What are you putting in this box? Where are you sending it? How much did the item cost? Is there a chance you can get it back after it's used? How important is it to you?"

"I'm not adopting it, Mother, I'm only borrowing it."

"You're the one who makes fun of me every year for saving boxes, aren't you, missy?"

"That's true, Mother, but you know what a rotten person I am."

"You don't treat boxes nicely. I saw you jam an afghan in one one year, and it broke down the sides."

"Mother! I'm begging!"

She handed me a box off the shelf. "Tell me what time it is to be opened, and I'll be there."

- Erma Bombeck

[on the bay]

@Queen of shop,

"organized chaos"-exactly!

My grandmother too. And heaven forbid you should tidy up or help re-organize anything! 

I too have very organized files and folders😄

[Foxxee]

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@on the bay wrote:

@Foxxee, and all~

Here is the Erma Bombeck essay we would roll out every Christmas and read to my mother, and now read in her honor, she being the original cutter outer of the actual newspaper article in the Washington Post.

"This is the time of year when the box savers of the world have their finest hour.

You know who they are. They're the ones who squirrel away every box and carton they ever receive and bestow the gift of immortality upon it.There is something arrogant about people who save boxes. They remind me of the sanctimonious people who always have their ticket and the right change at the parking garage, or whose car is always in gear when the traffic light changes.

The carton queen in our family is my mother. There is nothing you can name that she does not have an empty box for. Want to wrap a piano? Go to Mother's. Want to surprise someone with a load of firewood? Mother has the carton for it. Buying a goal post for your grandson? Mother can wrap it.

Box savers are not only arrogant about their habit, they are downright evangelistic. I remember the first time I gave my mother a pair of earrings wrapped in a rectal thermometer box. I thought she'd be choked up that I found a box with cotton. Instead, she gave me the Heaven-knows-I-did-the-best-I-could look and said, "Why didn't you come to me for a box?"

I've watched her at birthday celebrations and Christmases. She is like a minesweeper. No sooner is the paper off the present than she is winding the ribbon around her fingers and smoothing the creases out of the wrapping paper. As soon as the recipient holds the gift up for everyone to see, the box disappears to be recycled. It will appear again for the next 35 years . . . somewhere . . . holding something.

This week when I discovered a jogging suit would not fit into a shoe box, I did something I do not take lightly. I went to Mother's for a box.

She flipped on the light in her closet, and I thought, If Tutankhamen's mother had a tomb, this would have been it. I had never seen such a box glut. There were boxes in boxes, boxes for folding chairs, lampshades, tubes for posters and cartons for mattresses. There were boxes singed with black where she had pulled them from the fire.

She turned to me. "What are you putting in this box? Where are you sending it? How much did the item cost? Is there a chance you can get it back after it's used? How important is it to you?"

"I'm not adopting it, Mother, I'm only borrowing it."

"You're the one who makes fun of me every year for saving boxes, aren't you, missy?"

"That's true, Mother, but you know what a rotten person I am."

"You don't treat boxes nicely. I saw you jam an afghan in one one year, and it broke down the sides."

"Mother! I'm begging!"

She handed me a box off the shelf. "Tell me what time it is to be opened, and I'll be there."

- Erma Bombeck

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@on the bay 

Thanks for that.  Very funny.  

[Tinkrbl44]

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@Foxxee wrote:

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@Foxxee 

That's hysterical ...  guilty as charged!  LOL

In our family, my father and I were the "good box" people. 

Both my sisters are the "good bag" people.  One of my sisters has an amazing "collection" of bags, some of them rather old and beautiful ....  some from companies that no longer exist.  

By the way ....  the rule at our house is if anything comes in a box, it's emptied and my cat has access to it for the first 24 hours.   It may not be a possible lomg term toy, but Bogey always wants to jump in the box and hang out in it for a little while.   

Anyone who has ever had a cat knows how they love boxes ...

[mousiegirl]

@Foxxee   LOL, my storeroom is full of leaf bags of cardboard boxes, and once again, I am going through the bags and tossing a lot, decided that good bubble wrap and moving boxes would do the job if I move.

I use a lot of the boxes sending DD things, for donations, and for storing some items, the rest just pile up in bags in the storeroom.

[mousiegirl]

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@Mary Bailey wrote:

For me it's bubble wrap

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@Mary Bailey   Me too, in addition to the boxes, lol.  I have so many large leaf bags full of bubble wrap, and I do use some every Christmas for new ornaments, but began keeping it thinking it would be useful if/when I move, not easy to store though.

[mousiegirl]

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@Boomernichols wrote:

@Foxxee One of my friends lost her mother this year and told me she must have kept  500 Cool Whip bowls.  She said she could not comprehend her hoarding these.

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@Boomernichols   Maybe with the idea of freezing food.  I knew a woman who saved all plastic containers and she froze sauces, etc. in them, also kept items like buttons in them.

[ROMARY]

I can't resist a nice, crisp, perfect box!

My cat, too, used to wait and expect a new, clean box each time we returned from grocery shopping!

[on the bay]

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@ROMARY wrote:

I can't resist a nice, crisp, perfect box!

My cat, too, used to wait and expect a new, clean box each time we returned from grocery shopping!

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@ROMARY,

Lol! "a nice crisp perfect box"

but I know exactly what you mean-

nothing like it😄