I Think Your Trick-or-Treat Bag Would Work Just Fine

1.  Every year, Dimples has to design a NEW, elaborate box for her Valentines from school.

2.  Every year, she brings the box to school on the appointed day, brings it home at the end of the day, and we get to look at the assortment of cards therein – most of which no one even troubled to write her name on.

3.  Every year, we argue over what to do with the box.

I mean, really, why do you need a big box covered with red hearts sitting in the middle of your closet taking up valuable space, particularly when you are never going to use it again?  Because – see #1

Once more, I am proven wrong.

Dimples has been sick since last Thursday, some sort of virus the doctor is certain she will eventually kick, but seems to have developed a liking for the Firepants household and does not feel compelled to move on.

Last night, convinced for some reason that she was going to experience a miraculous recovery in 8 hours, Dimples nearly had a panic attack because she had not yet decorated a Valentine box for school.

“Geez, you can just bring any old box.  No one is going to care if you have a box with hearts on it or one that’s au natural and says Tampax all over it.”  (O.K.  I didn’t say the last part, but you have to admit, it would be interesting to see the teacher’s face if she brought that box to school.)

“Mom, it’s for an Art grade!” Dimples admonished me.

Out of respect for her somewhat frail condition, I set aside my lecture on the disappearance of proper Art in the schools and my absolute, positive, without a doubt knowledge that a shoe box covered with scrapbook paper and glitter glue did not constitute Art.

A glimmer of an inkling of a possibility of a memory entered my brain.

“Didn’t you save your box from last year?”

Reflexively, Dimples dismissed my suggestion, as she does all others that I have not cleverly disguised as her own thoughts.

However, when I settled her down for the night, there was her last-year-somewhat-dented-Valentine Box, sitting on her duct tape school bag (which qualifies more as Art, I think, than the box) in preparation for the next day.

I think we’re even on this one.  She knowingly used an idea that came out of my brain, and I implicitly admitted that her decision to store last year’s box was not completely wrong.

It’s Win-Win.

If Dimples Wasn't Sick, She Probably Would Have Made a Duct Tape Box This Year