by Stephan Jenson

Created on: May 17, 2008

The morning had started in it's usual manner,with my wife and I discussing who would get up to wake the children and who would get breakfast ready. Once that was decided the day was set in motion,considering when they were young getting them to sleep in was impossible,getting them up was now a work in progress, however getting into the bathroom was a whole different ball game. There would be the usual your taken to long discussion especially when it came to our daughter,once all was settled and we were prepared to leave it was the treaded drive to work with all the traffic,however this morning was different.

It was my week to drive the children same procedure and same arguments again your sitting on my side, then out came the headphones or games, as I stared around the corner narrowly missing some boys chasing each other, there it was alone in the morning sunlight with out a mark on it in pristine condition, I looked in my review mirror to see that my children hadn't noticed a thing. Maybe it was the song on the radio by the Deltones that brought back memories of my youth, that I noticed my children were oblivious to the wonderful Gem we had just passed, not a care in the world they were occupied.

As a young boy in a small town, every kid on my street would have noticed it, recess and lunch would surely have been occupied with conversations of who would get to this prize possession first, as young boys we couldn't let the girls get to it they would ruin it, its whole purpose in life would be altered and the girls, well they couldn't possibly let the boys have it we would just destroy it with our foolishness.This was no ordinary prize, you would only find this maybe once or twice a year, the battle was on and the school day had been truly consumed by conversations of how to get there first,plans written on notes and passed in glass.It really was quite amazing when you think of it how this one thing would occupy the days conversations I guess it was knowing the hours of joy it would bring.

I was curious all day and when I picked up the children and drove home I made sure I looked to see if it would still be there, as I turned the corner there it was totally destroyed broken down in pieces for easy disposal never to be used, I looked at my children in the mirror again and nothing, they had noticed it at all, and it made me wonder. This was a refrigerator box,when I was young we would have been rushing home to claim it, it made the perfect fort and then turning it on it's side and converting it to a tank it would have occupied us for days,and the girls well the would keep it for weeks, yes cutting out windows and little doors and it was annoying as they would seem to get weeks of fun from it or at least till it rained. You wouldn't think that a simple box would generate so much conversation and enjoyment but it did welcome to age of technology.

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