Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for February 23, 2023

recycle

They come in handy for wrapping xmas gifts.

My late wife would save gift bags to reuse along with boxes of many types.

Wish I had invested in the Amazon box-making company. I could’ve been rich!

Well, It beats ordering a box of boxes.

This is how my wife is wired. Once upon a time products in need of repair had to be returned to their manufacturer in their original packaging. A lesson SWMBO took to heart.

Please note that today’s missive, as well as all so far this week, originally appeared in 2014. I hope Mr. Johnson has some fun things to take care of.

The mice will love it.

During the pandemic I/we collected too many boxes to count. I finally got around to taking them for recycling. With the backseat of my Forester folded down I filled the back up with broken down boxes. There were so many that I couldn’t see out the rear window.

I keep a few boxes in various sizes, but I cut the tape on both ends so they can be stored folded flat.

I keep them in the garage. I grab them before my husband can break them apart for recycling.

Looks like my home office.

What’s a “knock-on effect”? That’s a new one for me.

Take the longest box. Open the bottom of all others and fold the flaps out, fold in all top flaps to lay the box flat. Put them into the longest box with their short edge sorting them by the long edge. In the one corner that stays clear that way you can keep some cylindrical containers, if you have any. (Rip off any label with addresses to prevent confusion if reused for posting.)

Do that with every box in future: as long as more boxes appear than you need yourself that one box’o’boxes will serve all your needs.

Throw out all that can’t be layed flat, rips or won’t fit into the longest box with their short edge. Throw out any more than two or three of the same size. Throw out any that is soiled with or smells like what vermin may see as or confuse with food!

Since moving to Eastern OK in 2017 we rather quickly ran out of someplace to store cardboard boxes, so now we cut them up, bag them and maybe once a month take them, along with the newspapers, to recycling. One thing we miss about San Antonio(besides HEB)is that we had one day a week for garbage pickup, and another for recycle pickup

Her closet, which never gets ‘reviewed’, unlike our garage, which must be regularly tidied.

The cat must love that closet.

We traded the large collection of mail order catalogs for the large collection of Amazon boxes.

When did Janis change her name to my wife’s name?

This predates the internet. As a kid we saved all types of boxes.

Anyone else feel “exposed” by this strip? A few weeks ago I went through my own saved box cupboard and recycled a ton of material. Seriously, there were boxes in there at least 20 years old.

Mine are broken down and used to kill grass for flowers.

True but cardboard boxes are candy to termites

I suggest nesting smaller boxes in bigger boxes. It saves space and doesn’t take much more time to find the right box. (Nest them by shape, square boxes in bigger square boxes.) Of course inserting intermediate boxes in the proper place takes more time. This is an old computer program problem.

They all go in recycling, except during the garlic harvest.

My mother filled one bay of the garage with her collection of “Sacred Containers”. We just save the ones that are cat comfy sized.

Fold them flat and store them in one of the not folded flat boxes then buy a roll of packing tape & keep it there too.

We sell a lot on eBay, so there’s a mountain of boxes waiting to be selected.

As a boy, I could never have imagined the amount of time and effort I would spend on “This is a good box. I can put things in this box. I’d better save it” and then tossing it on the huge pile of other good boxes I have in the store room.

We moved into our new (and probably last) house in October and had a ton of moving boxes. I broke them down, stacked them in on huge box, and then advertised them for free on Facebook Marketplace. Several people wanted them.

Which reminds me – I’ll be placing an Amazon order tomorrow, so I need to break down the empty glasses I have.

Once again Mr. J’s social commentary rings personally true. sigh

UGH! That’s my wife. Have to keep all the useless boxes cluttering the garage until a few years later when we run out of room and she FINALLY reluctantly decides it’s OK to part with a few….(or until I gradually sneak them into the garbage one or two at a time when she’s not around…)

At least knock ‘em flat! They’ll take up much less room in the recycle bin.

Empty boxes fill an empty closet?

I’ve got a stash of larger boxes to use when I have the kitchen remodeled…

Remove tape from bottom, flatten, put back together and retape when needed.

I would think the closet would now be the cat’s favorite room.

The magic is gone now …

My wife saves stuff like this all the time. Once a month I go through her piles and throw away about a third of them away, shredding them, and using the shred for the chicken coop. I suspect she might know and is using me to make her throw away decisions.

I break mine down so they are easier to store.

Once I had to order one bolt, specialized for mounting a u-joint. I had to go to a tractor supply store to order it. When it came in, it was in a one cubic-foot box. The clerk shook the box & as the bolt rattled around in all that space, he commented, “Yeah, I think we got your bolt…”

A lot of warranties tell you to keep the box, in case you need to return the item.

Keep it twenty years. Burn it while she’s gone. The next day she will be seeking it.

I’m the one who saves good boxes

When cleaning out my parents’ home and getting it ready to sell, I came across dozens of old shoe boxes, various old (washed) clamshell boxes from restaurants, and all kinds of empty jars in the basement of the house. My Mom had all saved them ‘just in case’ she needed them. Keeping a few? Fine. Keeping dozens (or hundreds)? Then, it just might be hoarding.

My wife has enough boxes saved to sink an aircraft carrier!

One entire corner of my workshop taken up by “boxes” and their packing stuff. (sigh) )

I am a box saver too…sheesh

I used to save boxes. Now I throw them out. Haven’t had any regrets.

Cut the tape on the bottom and fold them back down. Get a roll of packing tape for later use.

Order that closet.

Cockroaches love cardboard boxes for eating, nesting, laying eggs. They love the material and even the cardboard box glue.

Reduce this to one panel and it’s a Pluggers.

At least break it down so it doesn’t take up so much space. It’s not like packaging tape is expensive.

We used to keep a lot of boxes but then we had bedbugs – and they love paper/cardboard items, so we got rid of them. In more recent years – say the last 7 or so – I have started keeping some again in our small porch.

What I have kept since we moved into our house 34 or so years ago is bags – brown paper supermarket bags, then later the “one time use” plastic shopping bags and other similar ones. Husband used to say to me – “they always give you a bag in the store – get rid of them.” I replied “you never know” I read books on organizing and they all said the same as my husband.

At the same time that Covid started our state moved to stores not being able to have the “one time use” plastic bags and depending on if one’s county/city had imposed a fee on paper bags under this law stores could charge for paper bags. (Fees are better than the store charging as when the store charges for a bag it is a sale and sales tax is due on the bag – for every paper bag “purchase” there was 1 cent sales tax on the bags as 10 cents was the common amount charged and sales tax is just under 9c/$1US Husband was upset at the thought of paying for bags – I pointed out that with my collection we will probably never need to buy a bag. I have stopped throwing them out when I use them as garbage bags in small pails in the house and reuse them as long as they are not “icky”.