Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Boxes Galore by Cindy Flores Martinez





Here in Los Angeles, we’ve had a stay-at-home order for weeks because of the pandemic. There’s so much I could say about the experience of self-isolating, but today I want to talk about boxes. I mean cardboard boxes. Lately, I feel like I’m swimming in them.


It all started the day I had to shop online because I could no longer go to the store to buy the things I needed. I ordered a lot of items from a major retailer’s website and assumed that everything would arrive in one big box. I was wrong. They began arriving in separate boxes from different locations. The shampoo came in a box from the east coast, the coffee came in a box from up north, the dish soap came in a box from down south, the cat food came from the Midwest and so on. While I set them aside to quarantine them, my neat little home began filling up with boxes.

And they kept coming. A delivery truck arrived every day and brought new items: the aluminum foil, the Ziploc bags, the cat litter, the canned goods, etc.—all in different boxes.

And disposing of those boxes is no easy task. Flattening them, gathering them, and hauling them to the trash—along with the packaging material that came inside the boxes—can be time-consuming!

And it only continues. The cat treats that I ordered for my cat a few weeks ago are now traveling across the country. They’ll be arriving on my doorstep in their own box. Help!



What about you? Have you had the same experience with boxes lately?
 
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Cindy Flores Martinez is a USA Today bestselling author who writes Christian Romance. She has an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Screenwriting. Her debut novel, Mail-Order Groom, started as a screenplay and movie project, which she shopped around Hollywood, New York, and other parts of the world. You can learn more about her at www.cindyfloresmartinez.com



9 comments:

  1. Yes and I just have to break them down and take them downstairs. They pick up trash everyday except Sunday here

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  2. Cindy, I have a lot of boxes delivered to my home on an almost daily basis. :) (Also from a major retailer.)

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  3. We haven't had to do much online shopping. We were pretty well stocked when this whole thing hit. The boxes that we have are courtesy of my husband who went on a shoe shopping spree. Several shoe stores were giving fabulous online deals, and he took advantage. :)

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  4. I'm fortunate that our municipal recycling center (cardboard; paper; glass; cans; plastics) is just across town.

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  5. Oh my goodness, yes! It's kind of embarrassing too to have so many packages delivered. A neighbor has decided to use them as a weed barrier, then she will put bark over it. I assume boxes are compostable. I never looked it up to see the environmental impact.

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  6. I have a lot of boxes. It's a pain to get rid of them.

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  7. There are 3 of us adults living here, and we're all ordering stuff. With my grandsons birthday in a few weeks, that will be MORE stuff ordered, and stuff coming that we didn't order. Los, and lots of boxes. Recycling gets picked up every two weeks, so it's a good thing we have room in the garage to store them!

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  8. I am packing up with the intention of moving soon, so I have been swimming in boxes as well. :)

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  9. We have been getting more than our usual share of boxes too. Fortunately we have a wood boiler so we've been burning some and taking the others to the recycle center in town (you can just drop them off - no contact).

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