Model Volunteer
Monday, September 25th, 2006“It’s not a dogâ€, I said, stating the obvious as I indicated the pile of deformed and twisted canines on the table.  “Those are dogs. That’s a giraffe. This is a mouse. Look at its long tail!â€Â I was particularly keen to draw attention to the tail. It took me a few tries to get the calculations right – too much air and it looked like it had suffered a prolapse, too little and it would be a mouse devoid of back legs.
I put the mouse on the table with the rest of the animals, took a swig of wine and began a series of dispiriting attempts at fashioning swans. My triumph with dogs, giraffes and mice made me convinced that this was not outside the limit of my balloon modeling capability. How wrong I was.  Half an hour later, traumatized by balloons repeatedly exploding in my face at critical moments, I just decided to drink more and forget the swans.
The orphans are going to be so disappointed when they rock up at the fun day demanding swans, or parrots, or bicycles, and I can only bring forth armies of rodents.  All is not lost though - lots of other people at the balloon workshop/Sunday afternoon excuse for a piss-up were much better than me, producing complex masterpieces that wouldn’t look out of place in the local art gallery, so I may just stick to face painting, like last year.
