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When You’re a Crane, You’re a Crane, Probably

Even when the holidays are over, they can still reach out and getcha.

So far as you’d know, our Christmastime has been over for a while. The travel is done. The tree is down, and all the tinsel and ornaments and over-the-shower-head mistletoe have been put away for another year.

(Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying.)

But earlier this week, there was still one remnant of the holiday left: cardboard. Lots of cardboard. Empty wrapping paper rolls. Shipping boxes. Boxes of things that came in the shipping boxes. Inserts and wrappers and tags, oh my. This week, I took it all to the curb for recycling.

That was a shitshow, start to finish. Obviously.

First, I schlepped everything outside. Dropped some boxes. Tripped on a few. Got a shoe stuck in one. The usual.

Then I worked on breaking everything down. With a couple of neighbors sharing recycling bins, we usually have a space roughly the size of a small chihuahua left to put all our stuff in. So I flattened all the boxes, ripped the tape away from the flaps, and bent them around like Tetris pieces to cram them in the bin.

All of this was in twenty-degree weather, of course. So early in the process, I lost most of the feeling in my fingers. But I got all the cardboard in the bin, finally, and trudged back inside to report success to the missus. Who responded with:

“I looked like I’d been in some kind of origami gang fight.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

Apparently, in the cold I couldn’t feel the various cardboard-paper cuts I was giving myself furiously yanking on the boxes. I had slits on my fingers, and my wrist and one of my elbows. I didn’t recall bonking myself in the face with a box — but the narrow cut on the side of my nose suggested different. I looked like I’d been in some kind of origami gang fight.

I don’t know whether that’s a thing. I assume origami gangs would be called the Cranes and… uh, the Cranes? The little paper footballs? Are there other origami shapes? Do cutout snowflakes count? I have many questions.

Meanwhile, the holidays are finally, officially over now. And I’ve been bathing in Bactine for three days. Next year, I’m just starting a cardboard bonfire. That couldn’t possibly go wrong, right? Ho ho ho.