What's The Deal With Those Puffs Boxes, Anyway?

No, I am not saving Puffs (With Lotion) boxes for a major craft project. My collection of them has no purpose. It's not even a true collection. They are not displayed on shelves, nor arranged by color palette, nor stood on end like a mini faux Stonehenge. At the time each one was set aside, I had plans to throw it away. Really!

Here's the deal: my nose drips. Not constantly. But enough. More than enough. Especially when I eat, which I do more than occasionally in my dark basement lair. My mom had the same issue. Not discarded Puffs boxes in her lair. The drippy nose thing. She was always having to get up from the table for a tissue.

I don't blow my nose every time. It's just a drip. I dab at it. Eventually I'll blow. My need for a tissue is so frequent, yet so mild, that I tear my Puffs in half. That's all I need. Half a tissue at a time. It cuts my Puffs bill by 50 percent, you know!

While The Pony was away at college, I was left to my own devices to transport my supplies down those 13 rail-less basement stairs. A new box of Puffs could be dropped from above, to land on Genius's old desk, or skitter off. It's not like tissues can be damaged by a 7-8 foot fall. Getting the tissues BACK UP the stairs was more of a problem.

I have a large black trash bag in my office. I fill it as needed with my Devil's Playground shopping bags that I hang on a drawer knob and use for smaller trash. Used tissues. Losing scratchers. Nothing foody. All that goes back up on my tray. The main filler of my large black trash bag was empty Diet Coke bottles. I've cut back on my at-home Diet Coke. I don't add a bottle every day to my weakening 44 oz Gas Station Chicken Store magical elixir. I only use the bottles now (two per day) on days that I don't make it to town. Like during the icy weather, or when I'm busy making a holiday meal.

Anyhoo... those full black trash bags are awkward. As well as heavy if they have a lot of losing scratchers. It took at least a month, sometimes more, to fill a big black trash bag. Without The Pony, I had to lug it upstairs myself. That involved swinging it up two steps ahead of me. Balancing it with one arm. And single-leg-stepping up a step while holding onto the support pole at the bottom (for two stairs), then the floor above, and eventually the banisters. With each step up, I had to lift the big black trash bag up another step. It was a major undertaking, where I had to be cautious [Farmer H was still working two of these years] so as not to make myself business for the undertaker!

Back to the Puffs boxes... each time I used the last Puffs, I was in a hurry to open up the next box, of which I had stocked a spare. You never know when you might turn your head just wrong, eliciting a small torrent. So I'd set the empty aside, planning to unfold it and put it in the big black trash bag.

Well. There are more stimulating things to do in my lair with New Delly. I'd stay caught up in what I was doing, planning to deal with the empty Puffs box later. They're hard to break down, you know. That glue keeps the end flaps stuck on like...um...GLUE! Hard to pry them loose, but when you do, they will fold flat. I could conceivably unstick and fold down a dozen Puffs boxes, stack them, and they'd take up perhaps the space of a notebook. However... when put in a big black trash bag, they don't stay folded down flat! They accordion back to their box shape! Which is a bit awkward, taking up a lot of space in the big black trash bag, and poking their angular corners through the plastic. 

I couldn't just dump a lot of Puffs boxes in the big black trash bag early. If I waited until it was half full, they'd take up the rest of the room, and I'd have a heavy bottle-y ticket-y bottom, and a loose pokey-outie top. Awkward to wrestle on the steps. So I put it off. Some months I'd tell Farmer H that he needed to carry it up, when he was returning to the main level after stashing his Storage Unit Store money in one of the safes. Before he put a spring-action deadbolt thingy on the basement door, I sometimes drove T-Hoe around the Mansion to carry in my Diet Coke (12-pack cans then), and carry out a bag of trash. Then I could drive it around to the dumpster by the garage, and avoid the basement 13 steps, and the porch 4 steps.

Anyhoo... it's not hoarding, and not PURE laziness that had accumulated many a Puffs box for The Pony to shame me with while re-directing criticism over leaving empty food packs around the Mansion. 

It was just about 95 percent laziness. But hey! Now that I have The Pony, I might as well use my little beast of burden to suit my needs. He IS technically an indentured servant until he lands a job.