Nancy Drew Computer Games and Mysterious Boxes

My daughter and I used to really enjoy playing Nancy Drew computer games together. We’d take turns at the mouse, clicking on objects and puzzles, moving around, and having conversations with the characters we met. An important part of playing these games is investigating anything that can be opened—doors, drawers, and boxes of all kinds.

Often these boxes require you to solve a puzzle in order to open them. In a computer game, the puzzle could be anything from sliding pieces to rotating colors in a specific order to… well, any kind of game you can play on a computer. In the real world, the puzzles are a bit more limited. Still, I love boxes that have a trick to them.

All boxes are a bit mysterious in that you can’t see what’s inside until you open them. (Okay, glass boxes are an exception.) Back when I was young, a neighbor who collected decorative boxes told me that a box should always have something in it, even if it is just a penny. I think she had it right.

So even boxes that are neither practical nor tricky have two chances to delight you. They can be beautiful on the outside, and they can hold something interesting on the inside. For that matter, they can be decorated on the inside, which is a lot like holding something interesting.

Puzzle boxes offer a third delight—that of solving the puzzle. Even if you already know how a particular box is opened, there is something pleasantly sneaky in the knowledge that other people will not be able to open it without some difficulty.

 I have two puzzle boxes. One, which I received from a friend, is only mildly tricky. The pieces of the fish have to be removed in a specific order, and some slide up while others slide sideways. Still, I love the fact that it is not a straightforward box.

The other box is a Japanese puzzle box. Opening this box involves sliding whole surfaces forward or back or up or down, in the right sequence. I believe it is one of the easier ones, and that is difficult enough for me.

Finding a place to display decorative boxes is a problem, though, especially if you end up with lots of little ones. What to do? Well, when I went looking for my small decorative boxes so I could take photos of them, I looked in… yep, more boxes.  One of those was a decorative box of the sort found at Michael’s.

And speaking of mysteries and discoveries—in the same box I found the record of my smallpox vaccination, dated 1977.

You never know what you’ll find.

Till next post.