Remember when you were a kid, and your parents took delivery on a new appliance, or piece of furniture? Remember what it was like? Remember the thrill of anticipation as that most awesome item was brought into your home.
What was it that brought such joy? Was it the refrigerator? The stove? The sofa?
No. To the child mind, that most wonderful of items was not the mundane appliance itself, but the box it came in.
An empty cardboard box is a child’s best friend. A chance to flip on the imagination and turn the carton into an ever-changing array of props, containers and hovels, until ultimately, inevitably, the box became torn, worn, and floppy scraps of corrugated trash.
But in the time between arrival and disposal, it was a joyful, magical gateway.
I had a chance to relive that joy today…sort of…twice.
The first time was when we took the very first UPS delivery at our new office…the first of two surprises for the team… a professional quality Winmau Blade IV Bristle Dartboard for the office lounge.
I signed for the box, and followed the UPS driver back through the main hall of our new office to see the box leaning against the receptionist desk. As I spied the familiar Amazon swoosh, my heart quickened. The driver gave me a cheery wave and lingered a bit while checking her delivery manifest for the next lucky recipient on her route.
I picked up the box…expecting a fairly heavy package…
It was not.
It was very light.
I inspected the box closer. There were pieces of mundane cellophane boxing tape on one side of the box that tore open easily to reveal, you guessed it… an empty box.
I swung the door open and caught the driver’s attention before she got her cart moving.
“Uhm….the box. It’s empty.”
“Are you sure?”
I inverted the box and shook. A single brown paper packing spacer dropped out.
“Yeah. Pretty sure.”
“Well, what is it supposed to be?”
“A dartboard.”
“Oh.” She shook her head and started pulling up the delivery record on her tracker. “Well, let’s just mark that as refused.”
Several hours later … hours characterized by how much dart throwing wasn’t involved, my phone rang. It was my salesman for surprise #2: a brand new, blue-felted pool table with an optional ping-pong table-top.
“Hi, remember when I commented that it was lucky you had the down-payment on the table because you were getting the very last one from our warehouse?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, funny story, they can’t find the table.”
“Don’t tell me. Empty box.”
*sigh*
Mind you, the empty box is a wonderful thing. I can still think of a couple interesting projects that we could create with a couple of really large shipping containers: a fort, a rocket ship, a cardboard pool table, a cardboard dartboard.
The possibilities are endless.