Boxes

Today, at my job at a coffee roastery in SoMa, a woman walked into our warehouse and asked for a box.

The intrusion isn’t unusual; people walk into the warehouse all the time. We keep the gate locked simply because of the sheer mass of “crazies” that wander the Mid-Market neighborhood of downtown San Francisco — “crazies” being my co-workers’ designation for unstable homeless individuals. In my co-workers’ defense, they’ve had to deal with people sneaking in to sleep in the mezzanine where we keep paper goods and even stealing merchandise.

This happens when the delivery truck has just left the warehouse and nobody has yet closed the gate after it.

Today, this woman wandered in, with a man sheepishly trailing behind her. She walked straight into the bay where the truck had just been parked. He hung around the door and hugged the doorjamb.

Unashamed about the trespassing, she walked right up to me and asked: “Can I please have a box?” She pointed at our shelf piled high with unbuilt boxes.

I stared at her for longer than was considerate, trying to make sense of this unprecedented request. She assumed I didn’t understand and repeated the question: “Can I please have a box? — just one of those boxes there.”

My mouth formed the irreverent but automatic question: “What do you need it for?”

She blinked once, but didn’t wince.

“I want it to use as trash in my room.”

I knew from her stained clothes, unkempt hygiene and the ratty bag that she was carrying that she didn’t have a room — at least not a conventional one with four walls, but she wanted one, a rectangular space to call her own.

Four walls mean containment, a place not just to deposit things but also a place to feel you belong. We don’t just deposit stuff in boxes, we inhabit boxes too.

Children play house in boxes. People go home to their boxes every day, and travel between their work-boxes (cubicles, offices, storefronts, classrooms) and their home boxes (rooms, apartments, houses) — often transporting themselves in boxes (BART trains, cars). We at the coffee roastery protect our four-walled factory — our rather large collective ‘box’ — from people who wander in… to ask for boxes.

I offered her a large box.

“No. No. I just want a small one,” she said.

I gave her a small box — one already built, unused, sitting on top of the pile of 2-D cardboard.

She took it, said ‘thank you,’ and walked out, the man tripping to catch up to her. Closing the gate to the roastery, I went on with my day.