A couple of years ago, a resourceful and peripatetic acoustic musician who many of you are familiar with, but whom I prefer not to name, stayed at my place while he was doing a gig here in town. Instead of a suitcase, he used a big cardboard box in which to haul his stuff around.

He kept the whole thing together with duct tape. Every time he opened the box, he cut through layers of duct tape. Then when he closed it again, he wrapped several new layers of duct tape around it. The box had more duct tape than box.