Puppet Master

There comes a time in a 30 year old man's life where he needs to take a long hard look at exactly how things are panning out for him. After today where I appear to have been beaten in the art of sock puppet crafting by six 4 year old children, I think today is that time. Dont get me wrong, my puppet Rufus is a dude, sporting a green Mohican and a thin green beard & moustache, atop a red & black striped face and huge goggley eyes. I'd add a picture but im restricted to iPhone blogging today and I cant work out how. But he also has a lopsided mouth as though victim of a serious stroke and various, rather ominous, dried glue stains. None of the children's puppets had either of these things. The princess was perfectly made, the policeman looked great and even the, er, manmum mumman looked like it had had more than two hours taken over it and hadn't been repeatedly slapped beardless into a table.

Much like Friday, I can't tell you much about the work I'm doing this week, but it does involve such puppet antics and small children, both of which have entertained me enough to temporarily forget I haven't had enough sleep to cope with the noise levels that the combination of these two things create. Highlights so far have included the children standing in a row & introducing their puppets: 'Hi I'm Millie!' 'Hi I'm George!' 'Hi I'm Jedi Alien Warrior Luke Skywalker with a lightsaver!' There then followed 10 minutes of arguments between two of the boys as to whether it was a lightsaber or a lightsaver that I couldn't intervene on as I was laughing too hard.

I didn't need to be there toad but 'conveniently' popped in so I could make my own puppet & hopefully learn a few tricks. I'd put the Muppets and Sesame Street as an influence on my humour way before any comedian had a chance to introduce me to concept of jokes, and even at the age I am now, I'll giggle like a kid at almost anything the Swedish Chef, Dr Bunsen and Beaker or Animal does. So now being able to stick my arm in Someone's old hosiery, give it a gruff voice & have banal chats with children about being a punk rocker or punk soccer as I prefer. There is a small part of me that would like to send every teacher that ever put on my reports that I doodled and chatted too much a small video of everything I do now to earn a living with the 'haha I win' written underneath.

Not that I had many if any of those teachers. I was fairly good at school and would generally cause bafflement by talking and doodling all the way through class but then producing finished work before the end. This meant they couldn't complain I wasn't doing my work and instead resorted to blaming me for other people not finishing theirs. My argument that I couldn't be guilty for their lack of mental capacity was often ignored in place of a detention. Sigh.

Like everytime I type a blog on my tPhone, my thumb is giving in around now. Let it just be known that Rufus is safely in my bag for a possible appearance at Old Rope tonight if I can think of a joke, and that yesterday I played Quirkle for the first time and won at Quirkle. This makes me, and my companion in Team Awesome, Lyndsey, are now undefeated Quirkle champions. I will never play again on principal. Or any other member of school staff. HA! Bye.