by S.D. Bills

Created on: March 06, 2007   Last Updated: April 23, 2007

When I was a kid, I read MAD Magazine. There was one comic strip of a mom and dad giving their son a big box for Christmas. Wide-eyed with anticipation, the boy opened the box, paper and bows filled the background. The next frame showed a kid-sized firetruck packaged neatly inside the box. The boy yells, "Take it out! Take it out!" The last frame is the ironic, yet humorous clincher as a disappointed mom and dad watch their son climb into the box and begin to play fireman.

I didn't understand the irony or the humor of that comic until I was older. I really didn't understand until I became a parent. When my daughter was three, my mom and dad bought her a life-size Barbie doll for Christmas. Kid-sized Barbie also came neatly packaged in a box. It wasn't two minutes after Barbie was unwrapped that my daughter climbed into the box. "Look, mom. Look, dad. I'm a dolly. I'm a dolly." All the kids, then, had to take their turn being the dolly in the box. The poor, forgotten Barbie doll leaned in the corner with stiff legs and arms, smiling, waiting for someone to play with her.

The best household product for play is a simple cardboard box. My son who is six years old has an affinity for shoe boxes. These shoe boxes become treasure chests and secret lairs for spy gear or Star Wars paraphrenalia. He has a collection of various sized boxes throughout his room. One is for Rescue Heroes. One is for pirate stuff. One is for Batman stuff. One is for Legoes. Each holds its own treasure. But what's interesting is that the "fun" is not necessarily what each box holds, it's that the treasure is in a box made just for that purpose.

Refrigerator boxes or furniture boxes or wardrobe boxes turn into houses, space ships, tunnels. Who needs a swingset when an industrial, fridge-sized box becomes available? I remember spending hours doodling on the insides of those big boxes...drawing my bed and a couch and then some windows with a landscape. On the exterior, my sisters and I would draw grass and flowers. We would spend hours occupied in imagining what the box could be next.

Who knew that the beginning of a good imagination was cardboard box?

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