Milk crate mysteries
I had never noticed this before, but there is a milk crate on our front porch, and on the side of it is written, "Misuse Liable to Prosecution."
What could this possibly mean? Miss Conduct has been asked to speak to the use, misuse, or nonuse of many physical objects--cell phones, grooming paraphernalia, napkins, iPods--but never to the use of milkcrates. Is it even possible to misuse a milk crate? I can think of ways to misuse a milk crate--beat an old lady to death with one, trade large numbers of them for heroin, use them to store illegally downloaded DVDs--but in all of these situations the crate per se seems rather incidental to the commission of the crime, no?
But apparently it is possible to misuse a milk crate. In 2003 a New York man was ticketed for illegal use of a milk crate; he was sitting on it (warning: offensive language in link.) And the fact that misuse of milk crates is illegal has entered the pop culture imagination, to a degree. A 2007 dance performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music took the crate slogan as its title. This article on urban scavenging notes that milk crates have many uses, yet are "stridently illegal to misuse." And apparently milk crate theft in Australia is a serious problem (*cough*).
Every day, things are learned. Every day. Life is beautiful.
Who is Miss Conduct?
Robin Abrahams writes the weekly "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe Magazine. Robin, who has a PhD in psychology from Boston University, has worked as a theater publicist, organizational-change communications manager, editor, stand-up comedian, and professor of psychology and English. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are given annually for achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.
