We were poor back then. Not living in a cardboard carton poor, not “we might have to eat the dog” poor, but still poor. Poor like, no insurance poor, and going to McDonald's was a really big excitement poor, wearing socks for gloves in the winter poor, and collecting nickels and dimes from the washing machine because she never got allowance, that kind of poor… poor enough to be nostalgic about poverty. So, when my mom and dad took me here for my tenth birthday, it was a really big deal. They’d saved up for two months to take me to the photography store and they bought me a Kodak Instamatic film camera… I really miss those days, because we were still a real family back then… this mall doesn’t even have a film photography store anymore, just a cell phone and digital camera store, it’s depressing…

~ Rebecca Mcnutt

Rebecca Mcnutt Allowance Birthday Camera Canada Cape Breton Cardboard Coins Digital Dog Film Future Instamatic Insurance Kodak Mall Mcdonald S Nostalgia Nostalgic Nova Scotia Past Poor Poverty Shopping Washing Machine Wishes

Ax-man. Cardboard isn’t one of the major food groups, remember?”-Marco

~ Katherine Applegate

Katherine Applegate Ax Cardboard Man Marco Remember

When one contemplated Portia, when one contemplated Sharon, when one contemplated one's own apparently pointless, utterly trivial being, the questions hung all around one, as urgent as knives at the throat. But the instant one tried to grasp one of them and turn it to one's own purpose and pierce through the murk, it became blunt and useless as a piece of cardboard.

~ Deborah Eisenberg

Deborah Eisenberg Cardboard Existentialism Knives

Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.

~ Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck Boxes Cardboard Gifts Mothers Recycling