Living alone gave me the freedom to stow away boxes just about anywhere my mind could find space. Now I admit that's not a great asset to tout, but one must count whatever blessings you have, and putting awkward spaces to use appeals to that side of me rarely admired by others, yet surprisingly useful and strangely engaging.
This box found its home at the back of the refrigerator -- on the cooler's top, of course, not inside. And there the empty wrapper sat, for years, collecting dust in the relative obscurity usually left to spiders and shadows, its only company being the art deco canisters that should have been filled with cooking consumables (but were not, but for the sugar for my tea) and a similar yet smaller rectangle that once cradled the mighty hammer Mjolnir (admittedly an important contact for any ambitious high-tech cardboard container, but one that ultimately contributed little to this one's career growth and prosperity).
And so the green and grayish brown packaging waited, in silence, counting each time the ice cube maker stuttered, the air conditioner decided to contest the heat, or the furnace belched. Such things seemed to go on forever, truly, impacting little but the dust rings growing like ocean waves across its face... but then events off-camera changed; the apartment's momentum shifted and the time came for me to move. Signatures scrolled and deadlines kicked in, none of which the secluded box knew or cared about, until the moment dawned when I could not put off the dreaded deed any longer.
Yes, I had to pack my printer.
And so with a grimace primed upon my rigid lips, I pulled down this box. Instant joy swept through its dry cardboard veins -- oh, to have a purpose again! -- though it wept as I wiped away the sands of time built up across its face. Taking no notice at its displeasure, I removed the packing material saved within its walls and laid the printer within its styrofoam frame -- only to find the device wouldn't fit. So I removed that black plastic printing press, read anew the directional words stamped on that white foam, adjusted the freshly dusted ink manager, and found this magical contraption still wouldn't fit.
So I set the irrepressible engines of my mind to solve this puzzle, and then, only then, did I see the printer bore the label Canon, while the box said Epson. Which of course the box knew all along, but then, it had enjoyed the artistic mountains and valleys formed by the years of dust upon is face, landscapes that I had callously wiped away in my desire to just put that container back to work. Thus the box sat in smug silence as I failed time and time again to squeeze the wrong printer into its walls.
And thus the moral of this story is, no one's really interested in a photo of a printer box. No matter what its backstory is....