Imagine for a moment that the next time you pack up your household belongings to change residence, something drastic happens to the moving van or vehicle in which you are transporting them. That this hypothetical exercise does not become too macabre, we will assume that ‘drastic’ doesn’t mean that your shipping transport was strafed, fired, torpedoed, and sunk with you in it, just that the vehicle disappeared but your belongings survived undisturbed for years in their packed state.
Now imagine that someone from a different culture, era, and language background happens upon the lost vehicle sixty-five years later and rummages around in your box of belongings, pulling your things out of their packing for curiosity and novelty’s sake. How they would marvel at them, attaching weighty significance to the soup tureen your aunt gave you as a wedding gift, the hors d’oeuvre platter you never liked but your husband made you keep, and the set of cheap drinking glasses you picked up at your neighbor’s yard sale. Think of the fascination the rummager would feel when examining not only the china, but the packing material. The editorial section and Dear Abbey column from yesterday’s newspaper that you used to protect your glassware would seem an important historical find. The rummager and would-be archaeologist might even consider the whole situation exciting enough to take some pictures and post them to his friends.
