Plaidophile

Another post to the internal for-sale mailing list, received to much critical acclaim. (I really wish I'd preserved my original one from a year ago.)

Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 11:02 AM
To: for-sale
Subject: The circle of boxes continues

Boxes to boxes, rust to rust. I'm finally unpacked from my last move, and so the black-market trade in used/abused moving boxes must continue. I have about 15 boxes, mostly small/medium size. Several of them have gotten quite beaten up from going through the rigors of for-sale multiple times. I'm tempted to just throw them all out, but then they look at me with their dewey eyes and say, "No! Surely we can be handed off on another Amazon employee yet again! We want to liiiiiiive!"

I feel so bad just throwing them out, especially since I also have some unused (albeit yellowed, and not very much) packing paper, also the result of a gradual process of attrition like the polishing of stones along a rocky beach.

Moving boxes have developed their own ecological niche, and so it would be cruel and inhumane to not keep their constructed biosphere alive, even if there's nothing inherently biological. It's more of an emergent property, really. Perhaps it is more like an economic model, or meta-life. In any case, its fate lies in your hands.

In any case, the boxes and paper and sense of godlike power can be picked up in Ballard.

A few hours later I'd not gotten any responses except one guy who was all like "Those boxes sound like they're pretty beaten-up," so I felt compelled to post a follow-up:

No interest?

Only a few of them are actually beaten up. Most of them are still in great shape! All the other boxes posted to this list go really quickly without any mention of their state at all! Surely someone must want to give these cute little guys another temporary home.

Finally I received several responses along the lines of "I don't need moving boxes but that was pretty funny, but I think people are looking for subject lines like "Free moving boxes," so I posted this followup:

Subject: FOR SERIOUS: FREE MOVING BOXES

Okay, so uh. Some people have suggested that I may have been too oblique in my original subject line.

I might be oblique but the boxes are quite orthogonal! (When properly assembled.)