Part 1

After the pitcher’s mound incident, Anita and I decided that maybe Dylan just needed some friends. Being fellow outcasts, we decided to be his friends whether he wanted them or not.

Sometimes that was easier said than done. I remember trying to explain what I wanted for a knitting box, “What I need is a cylindrical box so I can have the yarn come out the top.” Dylan argued with me, “You can’t have a cylindrical box. Box implies a cube. You need a cylindrical container.” I didn’t have any proof that box didn’t imply a cube, but my instincts told me that he was wrong.

In the end, it didn’t matter. What I needed was an oatmeal container. My family didn’t eat enough oatmeal to empty a box, and I was hoping that maybe Anita or Dylan had access to something like that. I never got to that part of the story because we spent the rest of recess arguing whether the word box implied a cube.

Sometimes being friends with Dylan was difficult, but he always had interesting ideas. I had never known anyone who categorized things so minutely that the simple phrase, “cylindrical box” was enough to cause an argument. I just looked it up and Dylan was right. The first definition for box listed states, “A container typically constructed with four sides perpendicular to the base and often having a lid or cover.”

Part 3