Think of it. All the times you've moved or received packages and you say to yourself, "This is a good box, I best keep it."
Both my wife and I are box hoarders. We keep 'good' boxes past the time we really need to toss boxes. Like, well, I still have boxes I broke down after moving from the old house to the apartment. Because you never know when you'll need a good box, right
I use boxes for other reasons than boxes, too. Like a Lowes' Small Box (yes, you can buy boxes at Lowes, whodathunk,) flattened and split along one side makes a handy cover from the top of the stove to the bottom of the fume hood, which effectively boxes in the area and makes for an excellent 'proofing' or rising area for yeast breads.
And I was despairing of finding drawer organizers for my silverware because the most logical drawers were narrow. And then I noticed that the cardboard flats from buying 12 cans of beans at Walmart were the right length and all I had to do was cut out the not needed middle section and then I could take 4 side pieces and put them together and now I have organization in my silverware drawer.
The great flood of 2024, thanks to the jackass neighbor we now affectionately call 'Poo-Man' (and who is no longer at this apartment complex, thank God, as when the landlady went into PM's flooded apartment to find out what was going on, well, there were things only usually seen in a turd-world country and that's all we're going to talk about this time,) destroyed a good portion of my carefully collected (some would say, possibly correctly, 'hoarded,') collection of good boxes.
It's a struggle. Because, well, you always need good boxes. And as soon as you get rid of good boxes then you discover the need for the now discarded boxes. AmIright?
Fortunately we now live in a world where getting boxes delivered to your doorstep occurs significantly more than it did 40 or 30 years ago, so even if one gets rid of the rapidly accumulating stack of cardboard, more gets delivered seemingly every day, or only on Saturdays if you have that option with Amazon or whatever delivery service you use to deliver boxes of stuff to your doorstep.
Back at the house, I'd collect boxes and flatten them and lay them out in the unseen back yard to kill off weeds. The boxes would deprive said weeds of sunlight, worms and bugs would eat the boxes, boxes would turn into rich soil and make the area better for grass. Which I hated mowing. Now I'm wondering why I did that. Take 'wilderness' and make it into grasslands. Oh, that's right, because grass was much better than various vines and weeds and other things that I was and am pert near deadly allergic to. I'm only somewhat allergic to grass.
And now I'm accumulating small boxes that fit DVDs perfectly if they stand up. All for the great labeling and storing of our ever-increasing library of DVDs. Yes, I know, I can stream or something, but I live in Florida and sometimes internet is spotty which makes streaming difficult sometimes. And I like having the actual DVD so I can choose widescreen and all the other options necessary for proper home video enjoyment. Currently we have a list of almost a thousand dvds of various genres, from Christmas and Easter videos (Easter has things like "Ben Hur" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and such) and Faith-Based (like "God's Not Dead" and stuff like that) to Sci-Fi, and Action and Comedy and Music(al). The goal is to use the label-maker and do like a library does and label the spine with a 3-4 letter abbreviation and store all of the dvds in genres, alphabetically by title, with a section all by itself for favorite movies we like to watch more than once a year.
I have... plans. Future plans... Organized DVDs... I even have a Libre-Office version of an Excel spreadsheet with all the info needed to sort said dvds. And sheets of watch orders for series (like the "X-Files" which has both tv episodes and movies and if you don't watch them in correct order it messes up the flow...)
So, well, boxes.
Do kids (under 50yoa) these days still hoard and lovingly sort boxes like we do? Or am I just weird? Or both?
Now that the world is slowing down somewhat, well, my world as the outside world has Mexico and a certain secular Jew from Hungary funding the destruction of Los(t) Angeles and other cities while Israel is kicking Iran in the face and the whole Ukraine-Russia thing keeps going while Rocket-Man Kim just had his flagship sink on him. See? After all of that nonsense thinking of boxes is relaxing... Boxes... Glorious boxes...
Boxes are good!
ReplyDeleteTo a point. When you have boxes of boxes, it's getting past 'I'll need a box one day' to outright hoarding.
DeleteLife is messy, boxes help organize it.
ReplyDeleteGoing to need more boxes with todays news.
As Ole Remus says, "Stay away from people doing stupid things". Or close enough.
Why? Because of the 'peaceful protests' or because Israel did the 'Bomb the Bombs' thing again like they did in 1981?
DeleteRhetorical question :-)
DeleteAnswer is YES.
You say "boxes" and I say "cats".
ReplyDeleteI have a hypothesis that, under normal standard conditions, that placing an open box on the floor will cause a cat to spontaneously appear. Since I don't want a cat, I work very hard to not test said hypothesis.
DeleteAfter reading this post Beans one could argue that Boxes are a Ninth wonder of the World, and those boxes just right for DVDs let you keep physical possession of that kind of media, unlike streaming where someone else can decide to censor/alter what you want to watch.
ReplyDeleteYep. Between the Covidiocracy and the Writers' Strike, we have been diligently working on expanding our dvd collection. Especially after we recorded "Blazing Saddles" from a movie channel and it was very edited. Physical ownership is a good thing, to a point. Must be somewhat organized else it descends into hoarding.
DeleteBeans, I, too tend to hoard boxes. They are frightfully useful things, and if you do not hoard them you inevitably will need one which you then have to scrounge or purchase.
ReplyDeleteMy agony is foreign boxes - Japanese boxes of goods from gifts are purchases are amazing, and it wrenches my hear when I have to get rid of one. They are just as well made as the product itself.
The best boxes are the really old ones that have family lore. We have one or two of those, gifts boxes that have likely been in the family for 50 years or more and just get passed around.
It's interesting comparing moving boxes from 50 years ago to modern ones today. Old school boxes are practically made of reinforced concrete while today's boxes keep being advertised as 'reduced materials' in order to save space in landfills and recycling centers.
DeleteNot too long ago I was wondering if Amazon made their own boxes or maybe has a piece of a cardboard recycling operation...they use enough boxes. Just wondering..
ReplyDeletePretty sure Amazon is NOT in the box making business, but gets them from local box makers. Yes, there are such businesses, and a lot of them. They chug out tons of boxes every day. Most are common sizes sold in generic plain brown with only the maker info and sometimes size printed on them. But, they will happily (for a fee) print whatever you like on the, like the Amazon swoosh. And, they will custom make boxes to literally any size you want, but you have to pay for the custom cutter tool needed, and order a minimum of 1,000 boxes at a time. The cutters run about $1200 if you want a really long box, like something to fit maybe old rifles, and then each box is about $3-4 each, made of double layer ("A-B flute" in box speak). But for some people it is a great bargain and save a lot of money having the right size box on hand and sturdy enough to [almost always...] prevent damage by the UPS gorillas as they kick boxes down the road.
DeleteIf you don't have the right size box, you can resort to dumpster diving, and yes, I do that sometimes. Rather than hoping to find the perfect size, which seldom happens, plan on scoring a couple of really big boxes which you can then cut and fold to your ideal dimensions. (Make them as "five folders" so that they end up with one side overlapping the other to be taped into a sort of tube, then you fold the ends over and fill 'er up.)
When dumpster diving, apartment complexes are good targets, but try to go the day before their dumpsters get emptied, so stuff will be piled up high and you can grab it discreetly without having to actually climb in. Small strip malls are good too, but be wary of getting anything from dumpsters used by food places as it may be tainted by food waste. If you live in Bean's state, remember that they have frequent afternoon rainstorms, so you want to go hunting before it rains, but light showers really don't mess cardboard up much, if it dries out.
If you get desperate, or need a bunch of boxes, you can order them from a place called "U-Line" which has distribution centers all over the country, and ships by UPS. Most sizes are sold in bundles of 25 and they have nearly any size imaginable.
Yes, I love a good box, and while I buy a whole lot of them, I still admire and hoard the occasional odd size, knowing that I will eventually need it to pack up an odd size piece of junque that needs to be shipped to someone.
JB
The interesting thing about Amazon is you can order boxes from them in practically any size and they'll ship them to you... in boxes.
DeleteFor rifle style boxes, you can order from Midway or other gun parts suppliers or get generic boxes from a good gun store. Good office supply stores, like Quill or some other bulk supplier, also have a vast array of boxes that may meet your requirements. Or, and this sounds crazy but makes perfect sense, from a law enforcement supplier, one that deals with stuff for evidence processing and storing.
Sure, you'll pay a premium price, but it takes a lot of boxes to justify custom boxes.
And, really, some box supplier may already have the proper templates and cutters for the box you want already. Never hurts to go straight to the source for a reasonably large but small order, like in the hundreds.
It's crazy what you can find already.
And, holy carp, I just googled 'gun shipping box' and the first company that comes up is Uline and they have tons available. Cameron Packaging has boxes and even ones with foam linings.
Basically, if you can think of a box size and type, someone probably already has it in stock or ready to order.
As to actually 'cutting' boxes, some suppliers have gone to waterjets and computer controlled systems to cut out the basic shapes, including folding tabs and slots and all that. Crazy world we live in.
speaking of boxes and shipping:
Deletewhen I was preparing to leave GFAFB (I had acquired several fine old rifles across the border in MN) I was loooking for a means of shipping them home without damage.
decided to go down to the local lumber yard and get some lengths in 1x6 as well as some 3" #8 wood screws, went over the base woodshop and made myself a 4-space shipping container using Hoppes-oiled newspapers to fill the space.
that was back when lumber was a reasonable price, the AF was paying for shipping, and the gorillas handled shippping containers with some degree of care
There's an internet guy who shows how to make munitions crates. I mean, ammo or gun crates made of wood aren't hard to figure out, but he makes it seem real damn simple.
DeleteWooden crates. The way to go. Reminds me of the luggage scene in "Joe vs the Volcano." If you haven't seen the movie, well, it's worth it.
A tip for moving. When I retired and moved from GFND back to MN, most of my possessions were books. Walmart sells sturdy reusable banker boxes. All the same size for stacking and a liftable weight when filled. I had 124 boxes (all inventoried and numbered so I could find a book again). Took six or seven 200-mile treks down in my SUV. Still reusing them.
ReplyDeleteI chose the Lowes' small boxes for the very reason that I couldn't really overload them. Books, kitchen stuff, wife's bead collection, all would have required much more younger muscles than I had 8 years ago. So 'small' moving boxes. Still using them. And if I need more I can buy them.
DeleteAs to banker boxes, those are the best for storing even DVDs if you're not storing them on shelves. Except for the... clear plastic with zipper storage bags designed to hold 40 some odd DVDs in a way you can actually read the labels. Bought a 4 pack, three are all Christmas movies, both ancient and modern, and the other one will be Easter movies. So the Xmas movies will go in the back room and come out for Xmas season, and same with Easter.
The side rails from all the twin beds left over from long ago make excellent long shelves to put DVDs and CDs on and with all the spare rooms left in a 6 bedroom house there is plenty of wall space although the studio is starting to encroach and the cookbooks are frankly out of control and taking over the whole ground floor.....On the other hand, I left about 2000 books behind when I left San Diego.
Delete