B.5.06 Tiny porcelain baby
“A stranger placed a hex on this baby, transforming it into a tiny porcelain statue.”
B.5.05 A plastic pouch full of gin
“You have to buy them in bulk but they are extremely useful during baseball season. Especially when you have a husband who is obsessed with baseball.”
B.5.04 Plastic case with a potato chip inside.
“Purchased at a highway rest stop, some time after passing through Kaycee, Wyoming.”
B.4.03 Glass bottle of liquid, Cardboard box that says “Shame Sticks”
“My friend made me this when I quit smoking. Putting “shame sticks” on an empty box of cigarettes was a funny intervention to make me feel bad every time I felt like smoking. I keep it with my liquor because I feel most tempted to smoke again when I’m drinking.”
B.5.03 Orange Ball
“The second time I got kicked out of a Chuck-E-Cheese, I stole a few balls from the ball pit on my way out. Why does it matter that I didn’t come with a kid?. Ball pits are still fun for adults. It’s not fair.”
B.4.04 Bag of noodles with a face painted on it.
“Most people write their name on their lunches. I do this.”
B.4.02 A handmade collage
“We all left work one day and each of us had a collage tucked in our windshield. Nobody know who left them there but I assumed it was a art project. Maybe some BU or MassArt student did it. Are they making fun of us?”
B.0.16 Grey plastic object
“It was the 3D file that came in the example tutorial for our new printer. I got about 50 screwed up ones first. This one represents the exact point in the work day when I got to finally go home and have dinner.”
B.0.13 A white, foam construction
“It holds my markers. I’m not very creative.”
B.0.10 Purple foam insert
“The procedure requires three very specific objects in order to work correctly. This foam insert holds them snugly in place while I travel. When I arrive, I carefully remove them from the foam and assemble the device. Then I begin my work.”
B.0.09 Screw Driver cut in half
“I barely escaped the subway platform with my life. My poor screwdriver fell out of my pocket though. RIP Screwdriver.”
B.0.06 White plastic hook shape
“This is a piece of a child’s sled. When it broke, the hook part lived another life as a combination cat toy and back scratcher.”
B.0.04 Metal weight with plastic edge
“It’s the end-piece from a mechanical sculpture. It played a critical role as a counter weight, required to generate the necessary swinging motion that gave the sculpture its unique behavior. The piece showed in a few galleries several years ago.”
B.0.03 Tubular mesh, broken.
“The mouse problem at my house suddenly stopped being a problem. I figured it was a neighborhood cat, you know, doing it’s work. I found this in the yard. Is it the skin of some kind of snake? Could it be responsible?”
B.0.02 A page of slides
“I found a box of these on the street. Some of them were pictures of boring stuff like furniture. Others were… a bit weird. I keep it in my desk because if I ever quit, I want to hide some of the weird ones among the old project documentation. I know, it’s pretty mean.”
A.4.06 (Dice)
“I’ve collected these dice over the years, the yellow and purple are the oldest and I got them at different times in high school. I add a new one every time I go through a major life change and use it to help me make important decisions. I like using different ones for different questions.”
A.4.05 (Rock)
“I found this rock on my desk the day I walked into the office here at IDEO. I thought it belonged to someone so I let it sit there, assuming someone would come back to pick it up. Six months later no one would acknowledge it as theirs. I’ve claimed it as my own and named it Peter. He’s been in my bag for ever work trip.”
A.0.11 (A plastic artifact)
“This is a discard from the 3d printer, in high school though I used to chew on pens, this reminded me of the old blue bic pens I had, but it didn’t have any ink in it so I knew I could chew on it. It finally got short enough though that the pads started poking me in the face. You can keep it.”
A.0.07 (Plastic insert with hand written numbers on it)
“To speed up dealing with my OCD I used to number my markers and the spot in the tray they went in. That way I knew marker 11 would go in spot 11 and so forth and so on. It didn’t help, in fact I think it’s getting worse. I’m
throwing away the tray, giving it to you and putting them in a drawer now.”