I did something kinda dumb yesterday. I walked 4 miles. In the snow. It was not all uphill however; and I wasn't barefoot but I guess we can't have everything. Why would I do such a thing you ask? It can all be blamed on The Box of Shame. And what, pray tell, is The Box of Shame and how could it cause such lunacy you ask? Thanks for being so involved in my little stories that you're asking questions now. It's sweet. I appreciate it. Well. Actually, let's back up a little. I was blessed to leave high school with 2 best friends. I still count them as such to this day. Along with a few others I have picked up along the way. But I digress. Emily lives close enough to see on a weekly basis if I'm lucky. Krysta ended up on the other side of the country. So I see her every other year if I'm lucky. Sucks. And now that she has 3 kids, really sucks. As you can imagine, I would like to be the Bad Auntie to her kids as much as I am to all of my nieces' and nephews'. There's nothing more fun than bringing large amounts of chocolate to Emily's chocoholic daughter and telling her to have at it. Unless it's handing my nephew a sucker when he's strapped into his car seat and my sister isn't looking or buying my 5 year old niece bags of gum or...well you get the gist. Sorry-having a hard time staying on task today. I promise to flip a card if it happens again. ANYWAY, when Krysta's first babies were a few months old, I acquired a priority mail box and put a few things I had gathered into it. Nothing earth shattering. One of our favorite out-of-print Christmas books I found at the D.I., a copy of my kids favorite Halloween book when they were little, the Brother themed mini-book I started when I found out she was having twin boys, just stuff that I would normally hand over whenever I saw them if they were closer. It was fun having little ones to buy for again since they were becoming scarce in my neck of the woods. Then the box just kind of sat there. I would look at it and think, "you've REALLY gotta get that out of here. But there's still room in it. Maybe I should get an Easter book and then send it off." I would then put something else in it and it would sit there. Then Krysta had another baby and of course I needed to put something for the baby in it and and and...six months ago we moved. While I was cleaning out my closet what should appear? The BOX. Sigh. That is when it became The Box of Shame. I couldn't even remember everything that it contained but I COULD NOT look through it. Either the shame would kill me, the guilt would crush me or both. So, like the procrastinating asshat that I am, I loaded it into the car and it came to Draper with us. I would find an odd thing here and there that had never found their way in to it and I would drop it in. After we were settled into our new place, I swore I would get it mailed by Halloween. Then decided to send it with our Thanksgiving card that...I made but never mailed. I then decided to make Christmas countdown blocks that would just fill it to bursting and send it off. I even got the blocks done before Thanksgiving. The day after I sprayed them, the kids noticed that I had done one of them wrong and had to pull one side off and re-do. And wait for the weather to be warm enough to spray that one damned 3 1/2 inch square of paper-covered wood. Again sigh. I dared to spray the week of Christmas and we were back in business. I'm pretty sure my sanity would be questioned if I just sent it off and decided to put in a letter giving some sort of explanation about the bizarre(and at this point also mostly unknown)contents. Which is why I gave myself until yesterday to get the thing in the mail or commit hari-kiri in the parking lot. I went to bed Friday night and realized The Box still had no letter. I went to sleep with a plan to do it all first thing. I woke up late yesterday but with plenty of time. Decided to shower first and get to it. I got out of the shower and discovered Tim and Turner gone in the car. We only have one. Yes, I know we are the only family outside of Calcutta with less than 2 cars but it usually works. Really. Now I was in the soup. This is where we left off. My something kinda dumb. I could hope they came home in time to get to the post office for the last pick-up or I could figure something else out. In keeping with my new resolve to follow through on all of my lazy crap I opted for the latter. So, there was nothing for it but to slap The Box shut(sans explanitory letter of course), put on the sneaks and hoodie and hit the pavement. Fast. I think I mentioned it was snowing. Did I also mention that it was 2 miles one way? I know. Dumb. The silver lining to all of this is that I made it. With 9 minutes to spare! It took me twice as long to get back and I was wet and cold and really really tired but The Box of Shame can mock me no longer. Victory(of sorts)is mine!!!
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