jakorte's blog

The Wednesday after the Labor Day holiday was a lot like any Wednesday after a Monday holiday.
You know that precarious point when you realize that you have to cram 5 days worth of work into 4 days?
Foe me, that's the kinda of thing that requires a sugar fix.

It is, however, impossible to blame this incident on sugar or caffeine, or anything else.
On second thought, I guess I could blame it on the vitamin D. Yeah, I’ll go with that…

See, I was unwrapping a grape blow pop, and having some difficulty doing it, too. I ended up just untwisting the stubborn wrapper and letting it flap around on the stick it was firmly attached to. After a lick or two, I was twirling my treat absently while reviewing paperwork when what should catch the corner of my eye than a lollipop flying by!

Seriously, it looked like little purple headed super hero with a polka dot edged cape flying out behind. Then, I noticed a few errant tiny circles on my desk; leftovers from a three-hole punching episode earlier in the day. I added a few black and bleeding Sharpie dots, and voila! Blow Pop Man was born!

I giggled to myself a little while before I got up the courage to let him fly by office mate. Her eyes flew open in wonder - as if to say "I'm wondering where her brain went?". Then she giggled, too.

Thus began the Blow Pop Man trek. I visited every office and cubicle in our department. Everywhere I went, I fluttered him by astonished employees, announcing, “Blow Pop Man to the rescue!” between the two of us, we managed to transform each holiday-Wednesday afternoon slump by morphing scowls into equal amounts of laughter and head shaking.

Then, someone who had already seen the Blow Pop Man tour fly by once, saw it again, and jokingly snapped, "Just eat the Blow Pop!" I asked her to be part of the Blow Pop Man video, but she declined. I had to enlist the help of my first victim -my office mate. She obliged - it was hard not to. I have a pretty contagious giggle.

The Blow Pop Man video made it's own slightly more restricted tour, with limited engagements. Sadly, our morale boosting success turned sour shortly thereafter.
Oh, yeah, the saga continues...

A little later in the afternoon, I had some work to do in my other office. I’m still transitioning from the current one to the new one. Anyway, I'm sitting there waiting for the screen to come up, impatiently twirling Blow Pop Man, and I start giggling, again.

That’s when I looked up and saw my boss standing there, shaking her head and laughing at me. I assured her that I was not just idly playing with Blow Pop Man and was really waiting for my computer to boot. She assured my coworker that she had some concerns about me!

Hmm. Between this and the Laffy Taffy sculptures, perhaps I have a future as an alternative candy artist!
And, perhaps now would be a good time to explore that further.

The moral of this story?
There are some legitimately good reasons to play with your food, and there are some legitimately good reasons not to play with you food, as well.

If you’d like to see Blow Pop Man in action, please visit me @ http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1110078991558&ref=nf