Carl never thought he'd amount to much of anything. Few boxes hardly did. There was always that lucky one made out of solid gold, or the occasional box that made it all around the world, but the majority would always just be small, cardboard, giftboxes. Hardly any of them even had names.
Sure, there was "red box" and "blue box" and "that box", but there were many of them. And, the sad, sad truth was, Carl didn't even have a color. He was just one of the low cardboard boxes for the first two days of his life (which happens to equal about ten years, human time. I think. So Carl says.). But then, it happened.
After two days of existance in storage, the factory buzzed to life. Hundreds of boxes, all the same size, but in assorted colors, were being made. A few, so very few, had something put inside them, and then they were tied shut with a fancy ribbon. Carl watched all of this through the slit of the storage room door, wondering what was going on. He watched for many hoursm until suddenly there was a loud wailing siren.
All of the machines stopped. Smoke billowed up from a few. The machines started rumbling, annoyed, and people bustled around. It seemed they could make no more. Then, someone had an idea. They came into the storage room, and removed every box of the correct size. Including Carl.
They all gained a color, some had something put inside, and then they got ribbons. And numbers. 391. Carl was box 391. Now, atleast, he had something to be known by. Boxes 1 to 400 were all loaded into a truck. 27 complained they didn't have enough room. 143 wanted to know where they were going. 401 said that he wasn't 400, dangit, why was he on here?! Most of the rest stayed silent.
In time, they were all dropped off. They lay in front of a large house. There was a sign hanging fro it. It read, "The Happy Home".
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