Cardboard Boxes and Sex

Weren’t they fun, cardboard boxes? As a kid I thought they were a real prize. If anything new came into the house transported in a large, heavy duty cardboard box, the box was eyed possessively by my younger brothers and I, with much jostling for position, before mum made the final decision over which, if any of us, was allowed to claim it.

I turned mine into cars, pretty much always, turning them upside down and cutting out a flap, which, when folded back, made an excellent dashboard. All that were needed then were a couple of good string shoulder straps and I had hours and hours of colouring in and running around being silly, to look forward to. I often won, but that was because my brothers would sooner play cars than make cars, and I was the other way round - it meant everybody got a turn. It did mean I faced real resentment once or twice because whilst I saw a car (again), my younger brother saw a secret army hideout or the like, and worse, he had to watch it being massacred with scissors and felt tips.

Really big boxes were great for sitting in, making houses or castles or caves. Caves were a big thing in those days, I mean mermaids generally had caves and so did the bear-prince in The Singing Ringing Tree. My favourite teddy was one where I could balance him on the mantelpiece so that his paws covered his eyes. By memory, when that prince was a bear, he did a fair bit if unashamed new-man sobbing. Or maybe it was wet Czechoslovakian sobbing; I don't know. Anyhow, teddy was known to stay on the mantelpiece for days.

My son is ten years old. I don't know why I am ashamed to say this, but his absolutely best toy at the moment is the blue plastic moulded base that a supermarket chicken came home in. Its a broad boat shape and beats the pants off arranging all his plastic toy soldiers in amongst the soap and taps at bath time. The sticky standoff at the O.K. Shampoo has (thank you, God) been superseded by the Soap Day landings.

See posts below; I am not a stalker or an obsessive over a single fantasy male. There are many, many men that (from a safe distance, at least) make my pulse race and the corners of my mouth twitch into an evil grin, and I have spent the last twenty hours or so wondering whether to compile a set of links celebrating all the ones with enough fame to have a photo on the web. Plenty of female bloggers have already done it successfully (without anyone being accused of chauvinist or lecherous tendencies, even though we'd yell that at men quickly enough.)

It isn't going to happen, and that’s all because of cardboard boxes. Sex is all in the mind. A good romp, as much as a private fantasy, takes imagination and desire, trust and all manner of other cerebral pre-conditions.

What good is giving Pavlov's dog an empty bowl? There's no point in me regaling the gorgeous, knee trembling, lip-licking desirability of some men, if I am then going to spoil it with pictures. Nobody fancies exactly the same people - there would almost certainly be one face in the list that would be as effective for you as a bucket of cold water.

In honour of this difference, then, I am keeping my scissors and string well away from your cardboard box.

Three cheers for me. Gosh, what self control……………