Saving Stuff: A Theme Post

One day, a long time ago, April 17, 2007 to be precise, I mailed a package to my niece in New York City.

The package and I have a history even older than that. It was a birthday gift that I ordered for Lisa's birthday in January. When it arrived at my house, it was a little bit broken. I called the company and told them about my broken gift. They had no more in stock and would not be getting any more so they told me to just keep it and they refunded my money. I can't be sure what I did about an alternate gift for Lisa. Let's say I sent her a check and told her about the broken gift.

So now I had this slightly broken gift that cost me nothing. It was too broken for its intended use, but maybe still cool enough to keep around. I told Lisa about it and asked if she'd like to have it. She said yes, so I mailed it to her.

Lisa was on vacation when the package arrived at her apartment in Manhattan. Her doorman kept it around for awhile but then sent it back to the post office. It arrived back on my doorstep on May 11 of the same year. (If you're amazed at my memory for dates, don't be. It's all written on the box.) Lisa and I talked about it and I was going to resend it to her. But instead I put it in a corner and piled my crafts on top of it. And there it sat for over 3 years, until yesterday.

I bought some plastic tubs at Walmart to straighten up my craft corner. They are huge and were a really good deal. Yarn in one tub, material in another. When I got to the bottom of the pile, there was this mysterious box. When I saw Lisa's address on the box, I remembered the story but had no idea what was in it. Later, daughter Beth saw it and thought it was a cookie jar. How did she remember that? "Open it and let's see," she said.

It was a box inside a box. Packing peanuts flew everywhere. One last box to open and it took both of us to do it. Voila! Beth was right. A cookie jar, and a cool one at that. It doesn't even look broken until you take the top off. Probably wouldn't want to keep cookies in that jar, but you could fill it with spare change, a collection of something that you didn't want visible to guests, the possibilities are endless.











So Lisa, send me your new address and I'll get this cookie jar in the mail to you, again. Or I'll just box it up and save it in one of my new Walmart tubs.