The Last Box

by Lauredhel on June 16, 2008

box

We moved in November.

I unpacked The Last Box yesterday.

And it contained exactly what The Last Box always contains: clothes that don’t fit, an irretrievably stained jumper, that outfit I had been looking for everywhere, useless hair ties (I got a short cut a few weeks ago), musty winter pyjamas (now freshly laundered!), work clothes I haven’t needed for years, a rather nice shawl I’d forgotten I owned, and a single glove.

Those of you who have moved recently will know about The Last Box. Odds are, you haven’t even unpacked it yet. What do you think is in there? What do you hope is in there?

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This article was written by lauredhel

Lauredhel is a forty-something woman with a disability. She lives in her Western Australian family home where books, Lego, and soapmaking gear constantly compete for space. She blogs about feminism, reproductive justice, freedom from violence, the use and misuse of language, medical science, being disabled, her vegetable garden, and whatever else pops into her head. Lauredhel also blogs at FWD/Forward (feminists with disabilities), scribbles at her personal dreamwidth journal Selective and Arbitrary, and co-moderates Hollaback Australia. She joined Hoyden About Town in 2007.

lauredhel has written 1313 posts for Hoyden About Town. If you liked this post, you might like to subscribe to the feed via RSS or EMAIL to get instantly updated for more posts like this.

{ 13 comments }

1 Bernice June 16, 2008 at 7:52 pm: Well $60 000 in small bills would be nice, but I’m not too hopeful…
2 mimbles June 16, 2008 at 8:15 pm: We’ve been here 7 years now and there are still several “last boxes”. One is full of old role playing game stuff and the odd board game. There’s another with surplus to requirements glassware. Not sure about the others.

mimbless last blog post..Okaaaay….
3 Lauredhel June 16, 2008 at 8:36 pm: Bernice, that’s an interestingly precise amount – is that what’s left on your mortgage?
4 Beppie June 16, 2008 at 9:48 pm: I’ve got several “last boxes” in my garage. Mostly they contain old course readers and notebooks from when I was an undergrad that I can’t bear to throw out even though I don’t really need them anymore (since all my important ones are kept in my bookshelf). At least one or two of the boxes (and their contents) have been damaged by water.
5 Lauredhel June 16, 2008 at 9:56 pm: Mostly they contain old course readers and notebooks

Oh you mean those last boxes. *innocent look*
6 kate June 17, 2008 at 9:04 am: Moving annually for a while, I managed to ditch a lot, but certainly not all that random useless stuff. There are bags of clothes that will never fit again, even if they do fit again they wont suit me anymore. There are course readers, but I’ve ditched most of the notebooks.

My partner cleaned out some stuff the other night and found about five copies of the Tax Pack 2002 if anyone is in need of one. He’s moved house with those at least twice, possibly three times, with those.
7 tigtog June 17, 2008 at 10:15 am: *lalalalalalalalalalala*

I can’t hear you, and I can’t see any boxes with my eyes tightly scrunched closed like this.
8 Deborah June 17, 2008 at 10:24 am: Our last box is in what we refer to as the man-shed (c/f my garden shed). I think it has old text books in it. Maybe.

The girls call it the man-shed too. They have taken it over as a play space, and their father’s tools have been relegated to a shelf at the side.

Deborahs last blog post..A meme of fives
9 Mindy June 17, 2008 at 10:53 am: My problem is the box that has been unpacked and repacked and hidden in the cupboard because maybe one of the sister in laws will have a baby girl and want some of the girl baby stuff and we might need that if we ever get audited and I’m not ready to throw that out yet and I really want to get rid of those magazines of yours but it’s only a month since I asked you last time and you said no etc etc. One day the crap will be gone. One day.
10 Chas Dean June 17, 2008 at 3:31 pm: I’ve started filling boxes again in preparation for the (hopefully someday) move to Melbourne. In the process I’ve found a couple of Last Boxes – do I peek, repack or just send them on to the next adventure?
11 Lauredhel June 17, 2008 at 3:54 pm: Offer them on Freecycle as “Mystery Boxes”?
12 Helen Huntingdon June 18, 2008 at 2:18 am: I promptly ran off and got my Last Box. Here’s what I found:

iBook video adapter
iBook power supply (that’s where that went — I have 3 iBooks wandering around, but lately only 2 power supplies)
2 empty prescription bottles
telephoto lens for my film camera
flash for my film camera
small binoculars
triple-layer nonstick bandage pads
graphing calculator
Plan B emergency stash (I’ve known all along this was in the Last Box, and kept track of where the Last Box was, in case anyone I knew had an emergency.)
lemon and pepper seasoning

That was definitely surreal.
13 sophie June 21, 2008 at 2:56 pm: I found my last two boxes about three months after the last house move, having long given up searching for them in the belief the moving company must have misplaced them. Both contained various non-perishable foods.

That was about the time I decided it was time to turn on the freezer. They’d chucked them in there. (There was mould).