The Cardboard Lady

          

I confess.

I am the woman digging in the recycling bins behind the dollar store, pulling out all the cardboard I can carry, loading it into a parked Honda Accord, and then driving off in my small, white car crammed with flattened, brown, cardboard boxes.

Yep, that’s me.

I did it. Over and over again.

I haven’t made the Bellville Times yet, nor have I been stopped and questioned by the local police. But it was me.

Granted, I had permission. I politely asked the manager of the store if I could have their cardboard. I asked her on so many different occasions that she finally told me I didn’t have to ask anymore, just take what I needed whenever I wanted.

The cardboard’s for my garden. It’s eco-friendly, easy to use, and free. Plus cardboard screams creativity and experimentation and excitement. And it’s good. It blankets the ground, disintegrating into the soil and actually making it richer in the process.

I use cardboard as the foundation for new garden beds for it kills the weeds without tiling or chemicals. I can plant new cuttings in cardboard boxes, too, and throw the whole thing in the ground. And when I finally finish stomping around outside in my new beds, I can give away plants in cardboard boxes -- decorated, of course!

I love cardboard.

I’ve always had an affinity for it.

When I was growing up on Concordia Drive, one of my favorite things to do was play in a refrigerator box. I remember once, while a bunch of us were playing in one, a neighborhood boy opened a jar full of grasshoppers -- not the little ones but those big, hard, nasty ones that we don’t see too much anymore (ironically, another reason for garden recycling and not pesticide usage). Grasshoppers swarmed in our hair and clothes as we screamed and cried and were overall traumatized. I still cringe whenever I see a grasshopper, regardless the size. But that didn’t stop me from loving cardboard boxes.  

When my boys were young, they, too, played in cardboard boxes, never tiring of what could be built from something so basic.

And yesterday, when I went to lunch with our older son, I discovered his office was filled with cardboard!

And then there’s my husband who was once a cardboard man.

Yep. He was the one.

Ten years ago, you would have seen him in the back seat of a BHS student’s car, tooling around the courthouse square, eating at The Hill, or attending a BHS theater production or basketball game. Normally residing in my high school classroom, he would periodically disappear with my students. Once they left Stone Cold Steve Austin in his place.

Cardboard Ian, however, hasn’t disintegrated. I keep him upstairs where he has been known to scare a visitor not expecting to encounter him in the dark.

Cardboard must be our family quirk. I wonder if we’ll pass it on to our future generations. For now, we’ll just enjoy its benefits.

My name is Becky Bader. I was once a public school teacher. Now I’m the cardboard lady!