Children delight over boxed-in fun

There's nothing like winning a new, 32-inch TV to make you feel good about life.

Joni won the TV in an employee drawing at Southeast Missouri Hospital where she works.

She immediately called me to tell me the good news and enlist my help in hauling the monster box back home.

Joni and I both wondered how it had happened. My wife and I don't have a history of winning anything.

I won a baseball at an ice cream parlor years ago. But that's it.

You read about people who regularly win drawings for cars, boats, cash and other merchandise. I'm not in that category. Neither is Joni.

So naturally we were surprised to end up with a new color TV. While technically not a big-screen TV, it's the biggest one we have ever had.

After hauling the TV into the house in a box bigger than some Third World countries, we set it up in the living room where it instantly took on monument status.

Suddenly, I could watch a sporting event and actually read those little box scores displayed on the screen without a magnifying glass.

Joni and I were thrilled to see that our favorite TV characters had grown up, at least a few inches. Becca and Bailey were excited too, but not about the TV.

They were interested in the now empty cardboard box, which quickly became their home within a home, a play area big enough to hold our kids and flexible enough to fulfill their imagination.

Becca and Bailey played and played in the cardboard box, hauling in everything from toys to blankets and even a pumpkin. They climbed in and out, and crawled around in their newfound play area. Becca and Bailey turned the box into everything from a store to a haunted house in remarkably short order.

It's amazing how entertaining corrugated cardboard can be for children.

We could all save a lot of money by just buying, empty kid-sized boxes. In our society, clearly packaging is everything. You can't help but be impressed.

I'm convinced that cardboard boxes are the key to America's success story. It's what sets us apart from developing countries, which are clearly short on cardboard boxes, particularly spacious ones like our TV came in.

Kids rise to the occasion when they're boxed in, just as long as they control the entrance flaps.

The bigger the box, the better they feel about being boxed in.

For a brief moment, I thought about crawling inside the box myself. But my mature, dad conscience quickly reminded me that three's a crowd when you're all boxed up.

The cardboard box quickly took center stage in our living room. Joni and I finally had to move the box to a corner of the room in order to catch a glimpse of our free TV.

But all good things eventually come to an end. Such was the case with the box.

Following a sibling dispute, the box migrated to the dining room. Eventually, I deported it to the garage where I folded it flat.

But I haven't thrown it out with the trash. It's hard to throw away something as entertaining as a cardboard box. This one might still have a future in our house, just not in front of the TV.

As big as the box is, it needs it's own play area. When it comes to quality packaging, it is best not to cut corners.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.