New gift bumps old bucket on toward next life

We may have just burst into the year 2026, but right up until the ceremonial drop of the ball, a certain slice of my daily routine was straight out of the 1990s. Now compliments of a Christmas gift from my daughter and son-in-law, I’ll show up at the office with an update that ought to serve me right up to the day I retire.

While some of you may be quick to guess that the item of which I write is an article of clothing (definitely a reasonable assumption given my famously “curmudgeonly retro” wardrobe), you would be incorrect. Similarly, if you’re imagining the kids have somehow inspired me to ditch the 25-year-old bicycle I ride to work each day in favor of a fancier new model, you couldn’t be more wrong.

That you may have pondered either of those options, however, suggests I’ve done a good job in establishing a solid reputation for making use of things far beyond their prime — or as my wife is inclined to say, “Embarrassingly beyond their useful life.”

The yellow and purple lunch bag I carry back and forth to work is as capable a vessel as has ever been tasked with that purpose. It can easily accommodate my standard daily buffet — a couple of apples, a brace of bananas, a cottage cheese container filled with soup or salad and a frozen water bottle to keep it all cool — and still cinch securely to the rack of my bike with a single bungee. Dog-eared and a little bit scuffed from the handful of times it’s separated from that perch, it still gets up and goes to work each day just like its owner.

While poems have been written about the bruised and beaten lunch buckets of coal miners and foundry workers to stand in testament to decades of rough hands and hard labor, no one is likely to be thus inspired by my threadbare relic of a few thousand trips to the office. Even the most poetic of hearts, aside from mine, of course, would find it hard to wax nostalgic about this thing but for one small detail: the name drawn in permanent marker on its face.

“Ben 1-B” began its service in 1999 as its original owner, my son Ben, wrote his name across the front in his best first grade block print. A gift from the city to inspire conservation (Reduce-Reuse-Recycle) for each kid in his Oak Street School cohort, I’d say the lunch bag has served the mission well throughout 26 years of service. And while its new, durably constructed, thoughtfully partitioned and generously insulated successor will undoubtedly do the job, it’s going to be tough to say goodbye.

Oh, who am I kidding here? I’m not giving this thing up for anything. Sure, I’ll use the fancy, new lunch bag, but “Ben 1-B” will be hanging up in my basement shop filled with random hardware or miscellaneous bike parts until the day I die. Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, right?

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.