Update: Images have been added at the bottom per Brent's request.
This summer, we had wanted Zoey to attend an art camp sponsored by our city's Arts League. Like everything else, we waited until the last minute to act on it. Guess what? All the spots had already been filled with the children of non-slack parents.
So I abused my standing in the community, pulled a few strings, and got her into camp.
Ok. That's a lie. I have no standing in the community. Unless you count Village Idiot.
So I called them one day, crying frantically, and told them that three hours a day for a week might not seem like much to them, but for me it would mean I might survive the summer with my sanity intact. "PLEASE ENROLL MY DAUGHTER IN YOUR CAMP!" I screamed as I choked back the tears.
That's another lie. But don't think I wouldn't have resorted to such theatrics if I thought it would have helped my cause.
They placed us on the Wait List. Now we all know the Wait List is akin to being a child and having your parents tell you, "Maybe." Maybe, like the Wait List, is just a way of placating you for a while even though the eventual answer will be NO.
So you can imagine my surprise when the Arts League called several weeks ago to tell me they had enough interest to open another camp. They have three kids (counting Zoey) interested and wanted to know if we knew of anyone else that might be interested. We told them that one of Zoey's boy friends (two separate words) would love to take the class.
Last week, Zoey attended the camp. But the two kids the Arts League found never showed up, so it was just Zoey and her little friend for the entire week. Three teachers, two kids, one camp. That's how the rich people roll, right?
She loved the camp. She painted, drew, and colored all week. She made things out of clay. Every day when I went to pick her up, her shirt looked like a multicolor Shroud of Turin. Since the messier a kid gets is directly related to the amount of fun she's having, I knew she had a ball.
She made a superhero cape. Bugs out of clay. Several beautiful watercolors. We were quite pleased and impressed with everything she brought home.
Except her castle.
One day they made castles using found objects (layman's terms: trash). They painted cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, pieces of wood, and other such crap, and duct-taped them together to create castles. These monstrosities were about two feet wide and two feet tall. And since everything was duct-taped together, they weren't the most stable dwellings. Kind of like the first little pig's House of Straw.
Now, imagine carrying that thing, holding your daughter's hand, and pushing your son in a stroller through the downtown area of a medium-sized city. Now imagine a different piece falling off the castle every few feet, causing your daughter to cry because her castle was breaking apart and causing you to stop and try to duct-tape everything back together (the castle and your daughter's heart).
I wanted to burn the Arts League to the ground.
When we finally made it home, I put the castle on the top of our entertainment center. When Ella got home that evening, after she oohed and aahed over it, I told her, "You're either taking that thing to work with you or I'm throwing it in the trash. We have no room for it!"
"I love it! It can stay right where it is!"
"If you love it so much, take it to work with you!"
That was six days ago. Guess where it is? On top of the entertainment center.
And every few hours or so, a different piece of the castle falls off.
What do I do? I put my tail between my legs and carefully duct-tape it back together.
Front View
Rear View
Aerial View
GHS: 4
One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Castle
