Craft Herpes

So today Becky was trying to make some sensory bottles (as featured on MamaOT's blog here). I attempted to provide assistance in my usual ways, contributing useful advice like 'the easiest way to remove the label is WD-40, don't waste your time with scrubbers and soap, that won't work, you need a solvent'. And then material assistance in spraying them down with WD-40 outdoors. (insert regrets for opening my fat mouth here).

So when we got home tonight, Becky showed me an attempt at an earlier bottle showing the glue and glitter (or as it's known around here, "craft herpes" as it is easily spread, and tends to leave a very obvious visible sign of infection, and is incurable/irremovable). It had clumped together in this horrid goopy ball. As I'm in "problem solver" mode, rather than simply share the feeling of failure and reassure her that "next time it'll go right", I leapt into action doing what anyone would do, trying to break up the clump. After shaking it like a madman, I opened the lid and jammed my finger into the bottle.

Now, if you're sane, you're thinking "WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU JAM YOUR FINGER INTO A WATER BOTTLE FULL OF GLITTER AND GLUE?". And if you know me, the answer is of course "Because Paul".

And when my finger ended up glued inside the neck of the bottle, because well, glue, I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances – panic and try to get my finger out by any means necessary. Which, because Paul, ends up meaning "covering myself, and my laptop in sticky glitter".

Then when trying to figure out the mystery of why ours was less awesome than the OT's bottles, I asked Becky to hand me the glue to make my own attempt. It too clumped (though I did not yet put in glitter). That's when I saw the glue – "Craft Glue"… "Waterproof"…. Water and hydrophobic glue don't mix. And of course, because I poured it out into the sink, there was a huge glob of hardening glue stuck to the sink. I managed to get a majority of that cleaned up, at least, and thankfully it didn't go down the drain.

"F* you, man"

This weekend, I was at Eastern Market, I was approached while enjoying an orange with my son and uncle by a guy. This happens all the time in eastern market, there's always someone circulating a petition for one reason or another.

So anyway, this guy interrupts our orange related bliss to talk about linking liquor licenses to not having expired food on the shelves, if the liquor store also sells food.

I stated I thought liquor licenses were stupid anyway, and didn't like how complicated they already are, and how they shouldn't pass laws making them more complex, and frankly, I don't understand why we require a special license to sell alcohol at all.

He agreed (!) saying that he didn't like liquor licenses either. So I asked him why he was making an already generally absurd process even more complex, especially since selling expired food is already a health department violation, and this really adds nothing but complexity to a process I already didn't support.

He explains how it would just force people to carry fresh food. I asked how, since they already were in violation of the law and they did not care. And again, that I didn't like that a special permit is required to sell alcohol.

So he started getting agitated with me about it, and I broke it down for him:

"You want me to support making a license I think should be abolished specifically because the rules surrounding them are already onerous and often absurd MORE COMPLICATED, in order to stop people who are violating the law by creating an additional law that they'd be breaking.". Then I just stare at him.

He walks past me and screams "F*** you, man" in front of me and my kid. I yelled "stay classy" as he walked away.

Am I missing something, or was that guy just crazy?