EDitorial ± 12-Mar-2006

Yes, It's Very Safe

Picture me in July 2003: a sunny late afternoon, and I've just opened my latest Amazon order, some spanking new graphics software. No time to set it up now -- kids will be back shortly -- so put it away somewhere safe.

Week or so later and I've found some time to install it. Box isn't on the desk, and doesn't leap out at me from any of the drawers. Not fallen down the back, not on the stereo, not anywhere. Keep checking and rechecking, no sign of that white and yellow box. This. Is. Infuriating.

This situation becomes one of those itches that can't be scratched. It's an image manipulation mystery wrapped inside an enigma. This physical item, my £46.99 package, has vanished.

Moving on: what with assorted purchases of, how you say, stuff, from the likes of ebay, Play and Tesco, I don't go short of a Jiffy bag. It would be very wrong to chuck one away when surely they're designed to be reused. Green to the core, me.

I know there's aleady a bag full of the blighters under the stairs, plus misc. odd ones in another cupboard, and one of the desk drawers simply won't take any more. So much so that it refused to properly close last week.

Saturday afteroon, having excavated around a baker's dozen of the fellas, I was able to slip my hand to the back of the drawer. Quite a few of The Baggies had escaped over the edge into a no-man's land underneath. At full stretch, my fingers detected other items: a toy car, and a glossy cardboard box. I knew what it was going to be in about three nanoseconds.