The Cardboard Kid

Every afternoon at school, Puck walks out, dumps his backpack, lunchbox, and thermos, typically holds up one finger and says seriously, “I’m going to dumpster dive, Mom. See ya!”

Eventually he wanders back with a stack of cardboard, left over from any number of innumerable school events. Usually lunches. This time it was a stack of half-greasy, and somewhat cheesy, Domino’s pizza boxes.

“I’m going to make a pizzeria,” he told me, and got busy thinking over a plan.

Eventually Hans also decided to temporarily join the dumpster diving club by reserving a stack of the non-greasy pizza box lids for geography projects.

Sometimes I think Puck’s nickname should just be “The Cardboard Kid”. Every day, something new.

The house was almost done, but Oxbear and I still had more packing to do. We left the boys, the younger one snoozing away in the back room, with Gloria, to finish loading up another room into bags and boxes for the Saturday move.

On the way, Oxbear was feeling a little snacky. He started things off by testing the waters.

“Should we… stop and get something?”

“Sure.”

“Ice cream?”

“I don’t really feel like ice cream, but go for it.”

“Want something else?”

“I’ll have a soda.”

“And some cheese curds?”

“Sure.”

Oxbear was triumphant, and fist-pumped. “YES!!”

Not like he usually has to twist my arm or anything. We just considered it a 12th anniversary celebration, five days early: Dairy Queen and boxing up the old house. Living in style.