...I hate that cardboard box...I know what you’re thinking – you cynical little so-n-so… you’re thinking, “Cardboard?? Why the heck am I gonna waste my oh-so precious internet minutes reading about some idiot’s cardboard?!?” Well my friend, you shouldn’t. I don’t serve your kind here. Don’t let the firewall hit you on the way out.

Now then, for the rest of you that chose to stay and humor me, let me tell you about cardboard. The first rule of cardboard is that it accumulates. It’s not like paper. With paper, you can have 20 sheets piled on your desk and still see over it. If you had 20 corrugated cardboard boxes piled on your desk (even flattened) than you no longer have a desk.

Now let me tell you about my wonderful town and their recycling laws. Before I rant, let me preface this by saying that I am a full supporter of the recycling programs around the globe. Worldwide even! However, like most things, when it affects me directly than I get pissed. Anyhow, my town kindly requests that we not just flatten our cardboard boxes – we are asked to also bind the pile of flattened boxes with twine. Not rope. Not sting. Twine. I tried duct taping a pile of boxes together once and they were just left there. I can still imagine the garbage men laughing to themselves as they drove away, leaving my silvery cardboard pile in their hot, smelly dust.

So, because I am 1) the laziest man in the world and 2) anti-establishment when it comes to recycling laws (which I fully support) being inflicted upon me, I choose to let my cardboard pile up in my garage bay for months at a time, unflattened and un-twined, before I do anything about it. The latest batch is being carbon dated as I type this, however I guesstimate the age of the oldest box to be roughly 10 months old.

32″ television box
crib box
clothes/shoe boxes galore
pizza boxes
shelf boxes
curtain rod boxes
you name it we got it boxes

Nothing can kill my Sunday afternoon more than standing out in the garage for a couple hours stepping on boxes and twining them up in “easily lift-able chunks.” Your hands get dry, your back hurts and your neighbors walk by – glaring at you – shaking their heads in disgust.