What Is That?

I didn't realize that construction skills would be necessary when I began Grandma's Garden.  

Today I struggled with the waterproof, 100 gallon, storage chest with cushion.  They sent me eight screws; I could only find use for six of them.  This might have concerned me, but they were the last parts in the instructions and after arguing with the clip in plastic sides for about an hour I wasn't interested in continuing the conversation.

I was dealing with attaching the hinge when kindergarten arrived.  I wasn't my usual welcoming self, so most of them stayed on the playground.  There were a lot of first and second graders who tried to help me solve the problem, which was resolved when the third graders entered the picture.

I was sitting on the old bench, admiring my work.  

What's that?

Hmmmmm, thought I.  

What does it look like?

Silence.  Bewildered looks. I started to laugh.  It wasn't disguised.  It was obvbiously a box.  It didn't occur to me that they were really asking how we'd be using it.

I had some fun suggesting that it was a banana peel.... a third grader.... and by then we were all laughing pretty hard, and continued to laugh as others came through the gate and wondered just like they did.  

Each group eventually got around to what would be stored and why were there screws lying on the bottom (cf paragraph 2) and what would we do with the bench that was chained to the fence and what was that cushion all about?

It was all about this: