know anyone who's moving?

I just spent the last two hours in the garage engaged in a great flattening fest. Our garbage company recycles cardboard for us, but it needs to be flattened. So, being the good citizens that we are, the cardboard cereal boxes, shoe boxes, flats that the bottles of water come on, clever little cages for the clementines, all have been tossed into our garage till I can get around to them. They were blocking out the light. I had to edge sideways to get around them. It was time to flatten.

Since some of them have been in there for months, I always carry out the flattening with a great deal of song and dance. I rap and rattle the stacks of boxes, calling out, "Yoohoo! Spiders? Here I come a-flattening. Will all the black widows please pack and move to Palm Springs? Here I come. Shoo, shoo, shoo. Run away." I firmly believe that the black widow spiders are no more interested in seeing me than I am in seeing them, and want to give them every opportunity to vacate the premises. Occasionally, one will go mad and dash at me. That's when the dancing starts. After many bursts of wild flamenco stamping and fierce cries of passion, ("Fuck! Oh fuck! Where did it go?") I frequently find that I have annihilated a tiny baby dust bunny, a clump of black thread, or a flicker of shadow. Well, the damn thing shouldn't have attacked me in the first place! Cripe! What's worse is that I use a cheap, ill-made, highly illegle switchblade to slit the box bottoms that are taped shut, and am often clutching it with one hand, thrashing for balance, and slapping madly at my ankles with the other. Honest to God, when you know there are black widow spiders stirred up and running rampant, every hair on your leg telegraphs creeping arachnidal sensations to your brain. The adrenalin could satiate a squadron of sky-divers for a week. And you wonder why I don't do this more than once every six months? My heart couldn't stand the strain.

But there are also many good sturdy big grocery boxes, suitable for packing up household goods. You used to be able to go to the local grocery store on Monday evening when all the produce came in, and get all the boxes needed to move, but grocery stores flatten and sell those now, so it's either buy boxes from the moving company, or scrounge from your friends. So if any of your friends are scrounging, I gots some good boxes. It'll be six months at least before I tidy the garage again.