Grandma’s Giant Box

This Christmas brought lots of gifting joy The Six-Year-Old’s way, but the present she enjoyed the most wasn’t actually for her.

It was for Grandma, and it came in the largest box that The Six-Year-Old had ever seen.

The Six-Year-Old was determined to find out what was in Grandma’s Giant Box before Grandma opened it Christmas morning, and devoted a great deal of time trying to entice her Grandpa into telling her.

Direct inquiries, bare-faced suppositions, and affectionate wheedling all were in vain. Grandpa held firm. No one but him would know what was in Grandma’s Giant Box until Grandma opened it herself.

At supper time that evening with only two sleeps to go before Christmas morning, a disappointed but undaunted The Six-Year-Old made a general announcement: “I’m getting up really early tomorrow. I have a lot of very important things to do.”

Mommyo, curiously: “Like what?”

The Six-Year-Old: “I need to ask Grandpa what’s in that big box for Grandma while he’s still groggy.”

True to her word, The Six-Year-Old climbed up onto the couch next to Grandpa first thing Christmas Eve morning. She flipped through her dinosaur coloring book casually.

The Six-Year-Old, artfully: “Grandpa, if you will tell me what’s in that big box, you can pick any one of these dinosaur pictures and I will trace it for you.”

Grandpa: “I’m not groggy enough for that.”

The Six-Year-Old tossed aside her coloring book and ran into the kitchen where her Grandma was making a cup of coffee.

The Six-Year-Old, in a stage whisper: “Grandma, Grandpa will not tell me. We need a new plan.”

In the end, none of The Six-Year-Old’s plans worked. Not even the ones cooked up by Grandma.

The Six-Year-Old found out what was in Grandma’s Giant Box along with the rest of us, on Christmas morning.

Since the secret’s out now, I’ll tell you. It was the largest suitcase any of us had ever seen (except Grandpa, who claimed there were two or three much larger in the store).

Mommyo, admiringly: “Wow, The Six-Year-Old. I think that suitcase might just be large enough to fit you. Do you think Grandma would let us take her Very Large Suitcase home if we promised to mail it back with you in it?”

The Six-Year-Old, curiously: “How long would that take?”

Mommyo: “Two or three days if we sent you priority mail. Longer if we used parcel post.”

The Six-Year-Old, practically: “What if I get hungry?”

Mommyo, airily: “Bah. There’s plenty of room in there for two, maybe even three days’ worth of provisions.”

The Six-Year-Old: “What about books? I would need a lot of books. And Tigery.”

Mommyo, excitedly: “Oh, books! We could send you book rate. That’s even cheaper! Bit slower though, so you might need five days’ worth of snacks. I don’t know if your pajamas would fit. ”

The Six-Year-Old, carefully: “Mommyo, we’re just pretending, right?”

Mommyo, reassuringly: “Of course, The Six-Year-Old. I would never mail you. It hasn’t been legal to mail kids in the U.S. since 1920.”

A mail carrier poses with a child in his mailbag for a 1920 photograph illustrating the new regulation against shipping children parcel post. Although kids generally fell under the 50 lbs guideline for parcel post, the Postmaster General determined that children did not classify as “bugs and bees” — the only types of fauna that could be legally sent through the US mail. (Photo & background info on it via the Smithsonian’s public domain Flickr stream.)

Related Links:

• Funny stuff my daughter says (Caterpickles)
• “How long can jellyfish sting after they are dead?” (Caterpickles)
• Caterpickles consults Grandpa: “Is the Auburn mascot a tiger or an eagle?” (Caterpickles)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.