The Squash Prank

Ever have one of those days when you don't accomplish anything you set out to do? Me, too. I can honestly say that on Squash Prank Day, the Squash Prank was the best thing I accomplished. It went like this. I was cleaning the kitchen from the previous night's dinner, and I took a cookie sheet out of the oven to wash it. I had baked a large butternut squash on the tray, and in the course of baking it exuded a long trail of sugary juice that bubbled up and went black, then solidified to the texture of very friable, dried-out meringue.

It looked awful and wonderful at the same time. I was seized with the desire to preserve it. I fetched some card stock, some Elmer's glue, a scissors and some spray fixative. I gently worked it off the pan with a spatula and glued it to the card stock so it would hold together better. Or at all.

Then I sprayed it with a plastic coating of art fixative to seal it and keep it from dropping carboniferous crumbs everywhere.

With an X-acto knife, I cut the card stock close to the shape of the exudate, producing this portable, re-usable unit of yucch:

And placed it on Phoebe's new corn-yellow carpet in her ever-perfect, just-so, highly atypical teen girl's room.

The brief, police-whistle scream, followed by a quavering, "Moooommmy??" from down the hall was worth every bit of the effort. I'm saving the Squash Prank for later deployment on Bill. He'll never see this...


Mether. You know who he will blame it on.