Theo's 2009 Halloween costume. 100% cardboard, except for the leg and arm bands, the old TV antenna, canning lids, glitter paper, and the "knobs" which I literally found in the gutter and decided to use. Also (and you can't see it) I have velcroed (is that a word?) two egg cartons to the back, which Theo can whip off in a moment's notice like a Las Vegas stripper (my image) and hold up in front of him to collect solar rays and recharge (like WallE, his image.)
Why am I showing you a Halloween costume in February?
Because I am thinking of my love for cardboard.
My eyes go shifty when I shop at our local co-op and there are the cardboard boxes for the poor souls who have (those bastards-- more on this later...) FORGOT THEIR HEMP/CANVAS/SAVING THE EARTH bags.
Even if I don't need it, I lust after those cardboard boxes. And I usually stuff, oh, say, twenty, into the back of the car. The texture, the history, the potential!
It would be like going to the moon. And, speaking of the moon, here is what Theo's preschool teacher Diane had the kids do recently while they were "exploring outer space." You know what this is, girlfriends: cardboard, a lovely layer, and strange objects, covered in tinfoil, all highlighted with some type of black glue.
Splendid.
This was another one of my favorite books as a kid. Now, I read it to my own children and feel a sinking feeling when I see the 1970s mom in an apron getting excited about her new refrigerator.
But never mind that. Once, when a former student came to live with us, and we had shopped at the co-op, and I had stuffed cardboard boxes in the back of the car as usual, we were driving home when I saw another WONDERFUL piece of cardboard in someone's trash (I swear, it was like a 3 ft X by 3 ft piece!). Of course, I had to screech to a halt and kidnap it. But when I got back in the car, Eric (the student) turned to me as if a policeman might turn to an addict.
"Do you know you have a cardboard fetish? "he asked.
"Yes," I said then. And I still have to admit it now. Yes, I do.