Josh: I think tomorrow is recycling.
Me: Hmm.
Josh: Is it bottles or boxes?
Me: I have no idea. I'll look and see what everyone else put out.
At that point, I look out the window and see the guy across the street dragging a huge box to the curb.
Me: Boxes.
Josh: Okay, be right back.
Josh will then drag our huge thing of boxes to the curb. It's usually very late by then and so we go to sleep.
Enter: Stage Left. Chaos.
All of us leaving the house the next morning. Everyone else's recycling is gone. Ours is still at the curb. Josh goes to check and the guy across the street now has an empty box at the curb. What happened? Perhaps, and I can't confirm this, but maybe the guy across the street was dragging a box of bottles to the curb? So it wasn't box day. It was bottle day. Again. Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't be the one who looks out the window on Tuesday nights.
So why am I sharing? Because since there will forever be mounds of broken down boxes in the house, I figured we'd put one to good use today.
Here is what you need:
1 extra large cardboard cereal box (the kind from Costco that holds two bags of cereal)
masking tape
scissors
blue paint, for your sake, washable
paintbrush
some paper to make a sign
an hour of time
4. Using your new hole as the starting point, cut a rectangle in the box, leaving the bottom line of the rectangle alone so that the mail slot can open and close.
6. Tape the top of the box closed, but do it in a sort of tee-pee shape, almost like the roof of a house. You don't really have to do this part, sealing the top shut just like the bottom is sealed shut is fine, but it's cuter this way. I wanted to round out the top like a real mailbox but I couldn't figure it out.
8. Let it dry. Everyone naps.
10. If you're really crazy, like I am, you will then modge-podge the entire thing so that it is sturdier than a cardboard box has the right to be. If not, not. Don't forget, it's just a toy made from a box. If it breaks, no biggie.
11. Hand your kid some index cards and tell her she's now the mail-lady.
12. Sit on the couch and read a magazine. (I'm kidding Josh! I wouldn't do that. I will now make dinner while our child plays USPS. Really.)