The Original Box Husband

I have many fond Christmas memories and one in particular….It had been a beautiful Christmas morning. Hubby and I managed to have a cup of coffee before the kids woke up. The tree was lit up with presents flowing from it like a rainbow. The kids had slept past six a.m. The little darlings had actually managed to read the tags on their gifts so they could tell which present had come from whom. We had gone to church together as a family. The financial impact hadn’t been too bad. Sitting silently in the heater room was a pile of boxes. All of the original boxes had been saved. This is the most important part of Christmas.

I had always been led to believe that Christmas was about the birth of the baby Jesus. I was wrong. My husband knew. “Save all the original boxes” is his mantra. We have eighteen years of original boxes from toys, appliances, furniture, and household items. Most of those items have been used and thrown away but I still have the original boxes. “You never know.” Came up frequently in conversations about original boxes.

My oldest son had gotten a CD player for Christmas. The box was huge. Fortunately for me I could fit a lot of original boxes inside the CD box. I tried to sneak this box into the recycling bin but the original box husband spotted my indiscretion and retrieved it. “Look what I found in the recycle bin. An original box.” He said grinning as if he had just found the mother lode. The CD Player had been removed, set up and was working just fine so I mistakenly tried to liberate the box. A few weeks after Christmas the player started making a grinding noise when it was opened. The original box husband retrieved the original box and proudly repacked the player and took it back to the store.

The saleslady in the store was much older than us. She was very nice in my Mothers kind of way. She opened the box. She stood there in a state of shock with her eyes bulging out of her head. Not only had original box husband put the player back in the original box, he had saved the original Styrofoam packing thingies. This thing was packed neater than when we took it out of the box. She broke into a huge grin. She couldn’t believe that he had packed it so thoroughly and from such a young man. The compliments came fast and furious. He had found an original box woman. Her husband of fifty years was not an original box husband. He was a “lets get this stuff out of here husband.” He was my kind of guy.

I have every original box from all of my children’s toys. That comes out to two children, eight thousand presents from their grandparents, a few from us, five thousand from their aunts and uncles multiplied by sixteen years. I have them all. The other day I decided to straighten the original box room. My husband keeps calling this room the attic, but I know better. I tried to liberate a few of the original boxes while hubby was at work. Wrong! He found them out in the recycle bin when he came home. I tried to explain that they needed to be with regular boxes doing what all of the other boxes were doing. No box wants to be ostracized for being different. He claimed that the boxes would be fine hanging out in the original box room with all of the other original boxes. They went back.

Then a few months after Christmas, I turned on the television and there was a show about collecting. The host was appraising items for the guests. I watched him give out a few estimates and then it happened. This woman had an old toy. It was maybe ten or fifteen years old. He went on and on about the toy and how it had been part of a real trend in toys. He commented on the value and how it was a shame that she didn’t have the original box. She did. The excitement was palpable. It added value to her toy. Substantial value. Original box husband was transfixed. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Eight thousand toys time twenty years, all with the original boxes. He ran to the original box room with breakneck speed, gathered up all of the original boxes for the toys that the kids no longer play with, and packed those toys with the precision and speed of Santa’s elves.

The transformation was complete. As he stood counting the money from the antique store he had become LET’S GO ON VACATION HUSBAND. I love a renaissance man.

The Hairball and Plan B

I am a big believer in signs from the universe. The problem with signs is that sometimes I just don’t pay attention when the universe calls. I had a meeting to attend that held the possibility of making connections to land a job. I printed out my resume to take with me. There was a huge, glaring typo on my resume. Yes, the resume that is posted in the cosmic universe called the Internet has a typo. That was the beginning of the signs. The horror is starting to sink in. I have been looking for a job for a while and everything that I have posted in the universe has a spelling mistake. I have checked this thing a thousand times. I have had it professionally reviewed. I have sent it out countless times. That is the first thing that you learn when you go to any career job site is to check your spelling. DUH! I have to fix it. I can’t go this meeting with a screwed up resume. This will take a few minutes but I shouldn’t make me late. I print it and head out the door running. I am trying not to speed. Not speeding is much more difficult when floating around in the back of my head is the little voice screaming “You are an idiot. You should have checked the resume and now you are going to be late. HA!” in a voice that can best be described as screeching. I take a nice breath, tell the voice to shut up and slow down.

The driver of the SUV in front of me is going way below the speed limit. I am all for conscientious driving but even I have my limits. Especially when I am late. Again the voice tells me that my failure to check my resume is not the fault of the driver in front of me. Yeah, Yeah. Screeching voice be damned! The universe is screaming but I am too busy watching the SUV to notice. The driver throws something out of the window. This is one very rude driver. Just to make the picture complete, the SUV has started to swerve. Oh good, now not only am I behind a driver who is driving slower than the limit, and throwing things out of the window, they are also swerving. Apparently the universe has decided that I need something else to worry about. Then it happens again. They throw something else out of the window. This time I look to see what they are throwing out the window. It’s a ball of hair. Yes that’s right, a hairball. I didn’t see that one coming. I do a double take, but the hairball or whatever it is has blown away. I must be mistaken. Who throws hairballs out the car windows? Cats? Then it happens again. It is definitely a hairball. Now I am intrigued. How do you have a pile of extra hairballs that you suddenly feel the need to get rid of while driving? I’m not sure how that works but okay. Then the SUV slows down for a light and I get a look at the driver. It is a woman with very long hair and she is combing it angrily while driving and throwing the hair out of the window. I have been driving for thirty-four years and have never seen anyone combing their hair with the anger while driving or throwing hairballs out a window. Clearly I have led a sheltered drivinghood.

The signs just keep coming. I get to the meeting and there is no parking. There is supposed to be a lot available to park but it is full. The sign that was blocking the drive way to the Plan A lot stated that the next lot over and down about a half mile is the alternate lot. Okie dokie , I go into Plan B mode. Only difference is in the Plan B lot the parking is limited to two hours. I already know I will be longer than that. Parking longer than the allotted time requires a parking permit, which is available from the attendant in the Plan A lot. How exactly do you get the permit since the lot is full? I can’t pull in the lot without charging the sign, and knocking it over which is generally not considered a good way to impress a potential boss. I park in the plan B lot and walk the half a mile to the attendant and ask for a permit. He is not happy about the whole thing because he has to unlock his glass door and actually speak to me. He opens the door just wide enough to hear my request. Saying nothing in reply to my request, he grudgingly gives me the permit and I walk the half-mile back to my car and place the permit on the front of my dash as instructed by the attendant who didn’t wish to speak to me. Then I hike the half mile back to the building and attempt to go in the door where the attendant who didn’t wish to speak to me has again resumed hiding behind his glass door. This time he won’t let me in the door. Since I am not parked in the plan A lot I can’t walk in that door and have to go around to the front of the building. I’m not parked in the A lot because it was full. It’s not my fault. He is making no exceptions. Plan B parkers have to walk around. Ouch.

I finally get into the building and there are no signs telling me where to go. When I need a sign there are none to be found. I find the meeting and surprise, surprise, the speaker has cancelled. The meeting was over before it started. There were no contacts to be made. No jobs. I am trying not to think of it as a sign from the cosmos just a Plan B day with a hairball .