A Box of Nothing

As I went past the kitchenette area where I work, I noticed a box on one of the tables, the kind of box that looks like it holds some kind of treat. It could be cookies, or cake, it doesn’t really matter at 2:00 in the afternoon when something sweet would hit the spot. I put on the brakes and made a quick left into the kitchenette to get something before it was all gone. Yes, it was a bakery box!

I took one last look around to make sure no one was watching, like I was doing something wrong (it must be some kind of learned response from my younger years), opened the box, and…it was empty. Empty! Unless you count a few measly crumbs in the corners of the box, it was empty. What a letdown. I thought I was going to get at least a little sugar energy to help me through the afternoon, even if it was just half a cookie or pastry, or even a sliver of a cake or a pie. I felt like the box was taunting me, laughing at me as I walked away.

Why do people leave an empty treat box sitting on the kitchenette table like that? It’s such a tease and such a disappointment. One minute your imagining yourself eating a piece of chocolate cake, or munching a chocolate chip cookie, or being lucky enough to find even a quarter of a cinnamon bun, and the next you get air. A handful of nothing is what you end up with. I guess if you’re desperate, you eat the crumbs, but I wasn’t. Truth be told, I have too much pride to do that anyway.

I had lots of experience with finding something empty growing up in a big family. I cannot even tell you how many times I came into the house to get a cold drink of water, opened the freezer, and found one ice cube in the multiple trays. I’d take the one ice cube left in the top tray, and go to get another out of the next tray, only to find it empty. Someone actually left an empty ice cube tray in the freezer! If I complained to Mom or Dad about it, they told me it was wrong for someone to do that, but could I fill up both trays so the next guy didn’t get the same problem.

For some reason, my parents insisted on buying the ice cream that has vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry in the same package. None of us really liked strawberry, so when you went to get some cold, refreshing goodness in the summer, the vanilla and chocolate were totally gone, like they were never even there. I know, you’re thinking that the container wasn’t empty, that there was still some ice cream left, however, as far as we were concerned it was empty. None of us kids were going to eat the strawberry ice cream.

Mom also liked to get us the variety pack of cereal with the small boxes, which was great for the first week and maybe the second week. After that the only cereal left was Raisin Bran. I don’t know any kid that would take Raisin Bran over Frosted Flakes, or Sugar Pops, or any other sugar-laden cereal. The Raisin Bran would sit in the cabinet getting stale, unless one of us was desperate enough to take it and pick out all the raisins, throw a couple of spoonsful of sugar on it, maybe some sliced banana, pour in some milk, and only then eat it. That’s how you start your day with a good breakfast!

I could go on. There were 99.99% empty potato chip bags; containers of milk, Zarex, or soda with, at most, a mouthful of liquid left; toilet paper rolls with one square left on them and paper towel rolls with no sheets left on them; boxes of holiday chocolates with the only leftovers the kind that old ladies like (my apologies to all the Grandmothers out there). Letdowns one and all.

Over time, though, these letdowns have faded into the background because over time I’ve learned what is more important, that being family. Tasty treats, ice cream, ice cubes, even toilet paper, won’t always be there, but I know my family will.

Football

Football is back! The games are on television and I’ve seen quite a few people either playing football or just tossing a football around. Around here, this time of the year is perfect for being outside and doing something. It’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. You can work up a bit of a sweat, but not have your shirt soaked through. If you’re not much of a doer, there’s nothing like watching football on a Sunday afternoon, hanging out with friends or family and eating some good food.

Football was big in my neighborhood growing up. When we only had a few guys we played out in the street, two-hand touch, from telephone pole to telephone pole, and the defense had to count to 5-Mississippi before they could rush the quarterback. You would think that counting to 5-Mississippi would be simple, but not much was with those guys. There were the guys who made up their own language when they counted (1missippi2missippi3missippi4missippi5missippi). I still haven’t found Missippi on a map. There were guys who rushed the quarterback when they got to the five in 5-Mississippi instead of after saying the full Mississippi. There were the guys who counted silently when you were supposed to count out loud, yelled “5-MISSISSIPPI!” after about 2.5 seconds and then rushed the quarterback.

Sometimes we made up first down markers, like you had to get past the tree in the front yard of our house or past the front walkway of the neighbor’s house across the street. Once you got past that mark, we chose another. Or sometimes we played that if you completed a pass, the down stayed the same. You could theoretically drive the length of the field, going 2 feet at a time, all the while being on first down. The shorter the pass, the better chance of actually catching it, so sometimes people would try to sneak in a pass that was behind the line of scrimmage, but the rule was that the receiver had to be over it to be considered a complete pass.

Of course there were always the arguments over whether the guy got you with one hand or two. There were some kids who would swear on their mother’s grave that you didn’t tag them with both hands and sometimes it just wasn’t worth the argument. But just to make sure they didn’t do it again, they just might get tagged a little extra roughly the next time he caught the ball. There were some kids who would lie or cheat in order to win so there were always arguments, ranging from the 5-Mississippi rule, to whether a pass was complete or not, to whether you tagged them with both hands. Amazingly, I don’t remember any games breaking out into actual fights. You argued your side, made your point and then we moved on for the good of the game.

When we had a larger number of kids to play, we went to a field at the beginning of the cemetery at the end of our street and played tackle football. No, we didn’t play amongst the graves. The front part of the cemetery was actually very nice. It had the field we played football on, some nice trees, a couple of ponds we played hockey on in the winter and people fished in during the other months, and a small hill that kids went sledding on in the winter. The graves started beyond the ponds and never bothered any of us – except at night, when we weren’t supposed to be in the cemetery at all. So we’d have our big game and we all got dirty, some of us got slightly hurt and a few of us lost our shirts. I remember a few of my friends going home and getting yelled at for the condition of their clothes and themselves, but hey, this is football, not badminton!

A highlight of the games, whether two-hand touch in the street or tackle in the cemetery, was after playing for a few hours we’d pool our money, go to the Sunoco station and buy sodas for everybody. If we had enough money, we shared some candy bars, too. Isn’t it funny how you could be beating each other up, getting into heated arguments and swearing you would never play with that kid again, and then you’d get a Mountain Dew or a Pepsi and all was forgotten? Now that I think about it, there were times we didn’t have enough money for each of us to have a soda so we shared those, too. Without straws. And none of us died.

If you want to get out of the house this weekend and not have to do yard work, go play some football. A little three-on-three, two-hand touch is great exercise. Us older guys aren’t as quick as we used to be, or as limber, so take it easy on us. But please, don’t be that guy who always says you only got him with one hand. You just may get unexpectedly jacked up!

Found Money

I decided to do a load of laundry the other day, and as usual, I checked the pockets of the pants to make sure there was nothing in them. When I check pockets I find things like gum wrappers, miscellaneous pieces of paper, earrings, even used Q-tips. Sometimes I find some money, usually change, but once in a while I find a dollar or, hold the phone, a five dollar bill! Any money I find is mine. On this particular day, I found two quarters in one of my own pair of pants.

I know you’re probably thinking something like, “Big deal, 50 cents. That can’t buy you anything these days.” Well, maybe if you’re a glass-is-half-empty person, you’d be thinking like that. But if you’re a glass-is-half-full person, you might be thinking something like, “Bonus! I got something for nothing!” That’s kind of how I felt, even if it was my own pants. That was money I didn’t know I had. And you just never know when you’re going to need a little change. Here in Massachusetts if you buy something for $5.00, the tax on it will be $.31, and you’ll be glad you have those two quarters. Who wants a pocket full of change when you can use the few coins you have and only get a couple more back? Who wants to sound like the school janitor with his 57 keys jangling on his ring as he walks around the hallways? Not me.

When I was a kid, we walked to school from first grade up through eighth grade and we’d occasionally find some money while going to and from school. I don’t know why, luck I guess, but we usually found money on the way home. Sometimes it was nickel or a dime, and sometimes we’d find a quarter. Before you start thinking, “So what?” let me tell you what a quarter used to be like. A quarter back in the early 1970’s was a gold mine for a kid. How? A measly 25 cents would buy you not just a candy bar, but a can of soda as well. That’s right, 25 cents would buy you a Snickers Bar and a Pepsi; or a bag of M&M’s and a Mountain Dew; or a Snickers Bar and a bag of M&M’s with a nickel left over. That’s what one quarter would get you, so imagine what two quarters got you, or what the Holy Grail of found money, a whole dollar, would get you! If you found a dollar, everyone around you was suddenly your best friend.

When we found money we’d go to Walt’s Sunoco, a local gas station/car repair shop, because there were candy and soda machines inside. The owner also raced cars and had a hot rod there sometimes, which we could look at and look into, but not touch. We thought he was just about the coolest guy! When we went in to get our food and drink, he’d ask us how we were doing in school and tell us to keep studying. If he was in an especially good mood, he’d give us some stickers for our notebooks, usually STP or Raybestos. We didn’t know what those were, but they sure were cool stickers – and no one else at school had them. So out we’d go, candy bar in one hand and soda in the other, feeling like we were on top of the world. 

We’d take our time going home, laughing and talking about what we’d do with our next big score, all the while scouring the ground for more cash. Anything that was round, shiny or both was pounced on, examined and then pocketed or tossed away. Nickels, dimes, quarters, it didn’t take much to make a young guy happy. Not when you were sharing candy and soda with your brother and best friends. Who says a quarter isn’t worth much?