I hope he likes it

Oh God it’s Friday the 13th.

Everyone has been avoiding telling me because they are afraid I will panic and set the office on fire. (I’m sensible like that). It’s already shaping up to be a crappy day. I have to go to my father-in-law’s 50th birthday and I haven’t gotten him anything and then like at the very last minute DW let me know we are all supposed to MAKE him something.

Homemade gifts are only endearing when the gift-giver is five years old, because then it comes from the heart and the kid still has the memory of a goldfish, so you can throw it away almost immediately without hurting their feelings. (I sometimes wish I could have kept that cuteness as an adult. I remember when I was five I took a whole bunch of stuff out of my parents’ closets, opened a “shop” in my bedroom and made them buy their stuff back from me. It was geeeeenius.)

Outside of fingerpaintings, I really only ever made two things in school: macaroni necklaces and a knitted scarf that kinda looked like it was meant to be a doily. (Oh yeah, here's what I DIDN'T make in school: Friends.) Neither seem very good gifts for a 50-yr old. I thought of buying tobacco and rolling him some cigarettes, but DW said the gift is supposed to be inspirational and he was all smug because he’s writing his dad a song, so I’ve decided to put my Art classes to good use and make him this modern piece to remind him of the wise parable of the tortoise and the hare:

They BOTH should have run faster.