Now, I already knew that there was a box of stuffed toys there (that may or may not have rotted away in the last fifteen years), but everything else was largely a mystery. Especially mysterious was a box that came from my Granny's house, a box that I remember putting some stuff in before it went up; stuff that surely had to be significant in some way if I wanted it stored away for safe-keeping. Right?
Ah.
As one of the things closest to the opening, it didn't take me long to track down the box in question. Unfortunately, my contribution to it was mostly trash. Actual trash. Okay, it was genuinely cool to find an old painting of mine, but everything else went from here directly into the bin.
Let's see: On the right we've got some decrepit lumps of plasticine, and the remains of some of the paint tablets my uncle used to bring me. (Can't imagine my parents, or grandparents were thrilled at the mess those must have caused. :D)
On the left is a bristle-less paint brush (And they didn't fall off in the box. It was like this to begin with.) and this... thing, which on closer inspection proved to be an elastic band wrapped in a bit of a curtain material, wrapped in green wool. And there's a fly stuck to it, but I don't think that was an original fixture. What it's supposed to be, I have no idea. I did go through a phase of wanting to invent things though (with no knowledge of well, anything really), so there's a pretty good chance this is one of my "inventions". (And there's a lot more where that came from, Industry. Pay me money!)
And that's not all. Also saved for posterity were a button, the top off a Push Pop, an ice lolly stick and wrappers from a Fox's Glacier Mint and, I'm guessing, a Cadbury's Eclair.
Oh well, at least the actual contents of the box was pretty neat: a sizeable collection of old stamps my Granny had saved over the years. Nothing that valuable I'd imagine, but it's was interesting going through them nonetheless (perhaps coming to a Tumblr near you soon).
So the mystery box turned out to be a bust, but what else was up there?
Well, how about my first school bag? Yep, that's it. I didn't go to school in the 1950's though, my dad was just a little out of touch with 90's fashion.
Nothing inside it apart from a few marker stains, and yes, it smells just like you imagine it would.
There was a surprising revelation on the back of it though. As well as scrawling my name in huge letters, it looks like I wrote "sex" on it and crossed it out. :D
Enhance!
I'm going to have to pull out a Sideshow Bob-esque defence here and say that's how I though you spelled "six" at the time, a misspelling that seemed to amuse some of the older kids. Really not sure why I felt the need to put it on my bag though. Thank fuck the teacher never saw it. :D
And finally...
Boo! In the box with all the stuffed toys (which I'll get to later), I found these: a couple of sweet Halloween masks my brother and me got back in 1996. It still bums me out how little we do over here to mark Halloween, but things were even worse in the 90's. The only bit of spooky paraphernalia that was ever on sale where I was from was a selection of cheap, flimsy masks for kids. Imagine our surprise when these things showed up out of the blue.
Man, that was a pretty great Halloween. I remember my best friend came over; we wore these; had a bonfire; took a bunch of photos; ritualistic chanting may have been involved. And then it turned out that there was no film in the camera. Whooooo. Spooooky!
Well that's it, folks. And remember kids, Creepy Satan says "Rock on!".
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