Today I’m sitting in my customary location (in front of a computer screen at my desk covered in half-read books in preparation for my qualifying exams) and every so often I shift my body to see around the screen. I’m not certain about what I truly expect to find beyond the screen. Could he be eating another highlighter? Might he be trying to dig into the garbage again? Has he found something of questionable edibility to consume from the floor? All of these possibilities are likely (especially when he’s being quiet) but none of them are correct today. Today our son is doing something quite different.
He is silently sitting on the floor underneath a table playing with the most unlikely object: a shoe box. It didn’t come with a lid. The shoes were bought at a deep discount from a deep-discounter in the back of a store behind a curtain meant to conceal the bargain shoppers that are on the other side from the view of those considering purchases at full price. The shoes aren’t glamorous and weren’t purchased for style but for their usefulness in being shoes. Somehow this box found its way out of the bedroom and into the living room. Somehow this box has overshadowed a room full of birthday toys.
This isn’t really surprising. It is practically parental lore that the kids will love the box it came in more than the thing in the box. I always assumed this had something to do with the size of the box though. Somehow it seemed that a box housing a large kitchen appliance would be significantly more valuable as a toy than something that housed a modest pair of sneakers. Perhaps it is simply that our son is still quite small. For whatever reason the shoe box triumphs over the stuffed dinosaurs and the assortment of bouncy balls at the moment. That shoe box has allowed this father to write this post. No small feat for some cardboard hidden in the back of a store.