What's up with Whatsit

Altoid Tins

My life right now though . . . wow.

I have 125 Altoid tins sitting in a box: the small Altoid tins. I have somewhat of an addiction to Altoids (Somewhat? I can hear my family saying). I don't know, I just like Altoids, and I have somewhat of a fixation on having fresh breath. Anyway, I never used to save the tins. I have been buying them for so many years there would be nowhere to put them if I saved every one. However, I have a friend who wound up with a recipe for homemade lip balm and thought my empty Altoid tins were just the thing to put individual dollops into for Christmas presents, so every time I had 3 or 4 empty ones I would give them to her. She kept saying that at Christmastime she would make the lip balm. This was a couple of years ago. Christmastime came and went and she didn't make it.

Now, she is my great good friend and I wouldn't trade her for anything. But you know, everybody on earth has their quirks, and hers is that she has a hard time keeping up with things. It struck me that she probably didn't have one clue where a single one of those tins went. Well, dern, I thought. It just happened that my mother had just given all three of my kids some shoes, so I picked the biggest shoebox and started saving the empty tins for her myself.

Another Christmas has come and gone with no mention of the lip balm. No matter. At this point I'm kind of enjoying saving my Altoid tins. It's oddly satisfying to see them all sitting there in a row, looking exactly alike. Strangely, we were able to make use of a few of them. One of Matt's teachers said he needed some Altoid tins if anybody had any empty ones. I couldn't get Matt to remember to ask what for - he IS a teenage boy. I had collected 22 at that point, so I told him he could have half of them. I guess 11 Altoid tins is an odd present to send to your kid's teacher, but he did ask for them.

Now you know what I know.