Literal or metaphorical? You decide…
I was thinking of the concept of a box of rocks as I was cleaning up my yard of debris from my big fence project last year. I had several rocks and chunks of concrete left over and they are a problem to dispose of.
Back when I was teaching, one of the social studies, a nice new lady, described her son as “dumb as a box of rocks.” This is a tender maternal observation, but after I met the boy, I had to agree with his mama that the nut in this case fell far, far from the tree. I’m sure he had many other fine qualities, but traditional verbal intelligence was not one of them. More’s the pity.
Anyhow, a box of rocks is not only dumb: it’s hard to dispose of. The CIty of Manassas (where we live) is very good about trash pickup. They’ll take almost anything including refrigerators and kitchen sinks, but not rocks or stones. I had many more rocks and stones and called the nice lady at the City Disposal Department and she said that rocks were just too hard to dispose of. I thought, You’re telling me! I did have the option of taking them to the “transfer station” in the city but there would be a $45 fee to dispose of my rocks. I pay enough in taxes already so I didn’t want to add on to them.
I got my nephew to take my rocks then to the county dump, but I don’t want to have him come back for six rocks. In a box. I’m tempted to put them in a trash bag and see if they’ll go out incognito. Or maybe I’ll just bury them in the back yard where they’ll return to dust, just like the rest of us. So maybe we all are like a box of rocks after all.
Biscuit City 