This Box Is Definitely Empty

The family really likes the donuts and pastries from hell, I mean, Market Basket. Hence, when Lauren and I went Tuesday night, she emerged with a four-pack of donuts and a four-pack of sweet rolls. This morning, I was preparing my protein shake and found this.

I mean, what to say here . . . we cannot be optimists about this—objectively, the box is empty. And that’s fine—it’s always good to eat the food we pay for (unless we’re overeating, and then it’s bad, this PSA brought to you by Noom/WeightWatchers/LoseIt/Wegovy). But why must we leave the empty box out and not put it in the trash, which is half-full, I grant you, but has plenty of room for this box?

And my answer here is Graham. It’s definitely not Lauren or me, even though one might point to the growing pile of recycling and the failure to take it to the transfer station as evidence to the contrary.

Last night, I asked Graham to do his job of emptying the dishwasher. As with the trash, this is definitely not his job until a parent asks, and when a parent asks, it’s still a point of debate, as in, “Well, Daaaad, I’m doing my huge physics study guide right now.” Yeah, but emptying the dishwasher takes about four minutes and would help me while I make dinner so I can put dirty dishes into it.

“But I’m doing my study guide.”

Lauren chimed in: “He does have a really big project in physics.”

“Are you doing the egg drop project?”

“Not right now. I’m doing my study guide.”

“Oh right,” said Lauren. “He has midterms next week.”

So I emptied the dishwasher. Somehow, ten minutes later, Graham managed to break away from his “huge study guide” to eat dinner. And somehow, he didn’t have any more study guide to do after dinner.

The donut box? I’ll let you guess who finally threw it away.

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