It’s a Box and Nothing More

I spent seven years in graduate school and, for six and a half of those years, I lived in my 7th floor office of Animal Sciences. No, I mean seriously lived in it. I slept on the futon in my office and showered at the gym. I cooked in the 5th floor kitchen that once belonged to the Poultry Sciences department. I kept my clothes in the drawers of a file cabinet and on Sundays washed them.

Strange? Perhaps. But for me there was no rent, no electric bill, no water bill, no gas bill, no lease agreements, no disappearing security deposits, no loud neighbors, no brazen cockroaches, and no greedy landlords. I could do experiments at any time of the night and I did. I never had to fight traffic or walk through the freezing snow and ice to get to work. I made ice cream with liquid nitrogen and cooked pizzas, unsuccessfully, in the autoclave. I sat on the roof of this twelve story building contemplating scientific problems as the sun set over the lake or being mesmerized by the city lights that looked like scattered drops of a drunk and dying rainbow. From there I inhaled the very sky into my lungs and it was worth it.

You see, years ago, I loaded and stacked thousands and thousands of boxes for UPS. I stacked these boxes into another box all night long and then, when I was done, went off to sleep in a different box. Is this our life? To live in boxes and to live in boxes stacked on boxes? And finally, when we are dead, to be put into smaller boxes? I’m not interested in what everyone else does and I don't want to keep up with everyone else. I don't need the things that everyone else wants. I've always liked living outside of the box. And I still do.

You’re probably right – it is strange behavior. But what is a house or apartment to me? What is a house without her laughter? Without her smile? Without her insatiable curiosity? Without her seductive whispers? Without her kiss on my face as the morning light seeps in through the window?

It’s just another box to me.

- Just a peasant