Whenever I bought a pair of running shoes, I took the box to the basement where it became part of a shoebox skyscraper.

As the stack of boxes grew, I knew I’d better do something before it collapsed. I came up with several uses.

Sometimes I’m a little short on cupboard space. I find that shoeboxes make great temporary cupboards.

Where to put the many running socks I have?. In a shoebox. A bonus is that when I have visitors, I can create temporary chairs by stacking them up.

Another excellent use is a cat timeout place. Whenever my cat Gloopy does something that makes me angry, to the shoe box she goes for ten minutes.

After her last time out, I realized it was the 4th time that day I’d sent her there. I needed better negative reinforcement. I decided that threatening to squish her with my bike would do the trick.

Surprisingly, even though she knows it’s coming, Gloopy compliantly waits on the sidewalk to be run over. Just as I reach her, I “accidentally” miss, sparing her a squishing, but it’s frightening enough that her behavior has changed for the better.