For his 6th birthday, Steve gave Paul a Grow Shark, which is a variation on a toy we've had before where you put a small toy fish or alligator in some water and it grows several times its size. What happens is that you marvel for a few days over the size, and then you realize that nobody is really going to play with this big slimy rubbery toy, and so somebody (me) hides it away in toy purgatory and then eventually throws it away.
We were in Maine for Paul's birthday so when we got home, he put Grow Shark in its new home, a sandwich-sized tupperware. The shark lived on the counter for a few days as I expressed to everyone in my family how I couldn't wait to put everything away from our trip, clean up, have a routine, and so on. It has been documented, meanwhile, that my kitchen is currently my office and I have some very important feelings about this as a woman, small business owner, and mom.
The third day of the sharks' life a babysitter, obviously acting on a child's orders, moved the shark into my largest, most prized Tupperware. You probably have one of these at your house--it's the Tupperware you use when you're having a BIG party, or maybe somebody you REALLY care about just had a baby and you're bringing them food and you know they are valuable enough in your lives that they will definitely return the good Tupperware.
I was fine with the shark living in my good Tupperware but not how much space it took up--the Tupperware is nearly the size of our stove range. It probaby takes up a fifth of my desk/the kitchen counter, which gets filled up with everybody's crap all the time.
On day four of the shark's life I got fed up and stuck the Tupperware outside on the back stairs. As I write, the summer sun blares down upon said back stairs. And so it blared down on the Tupperware, and the Grow Shark, and the Grow Shark's water that day.
As you can guess, things did not go well for Grow Shark after that particular move. I guess your'e not supposed to trap Grow Shark in very warm water, because this happened:
It looks like what you see in a science fiction movie when a bad guy has been tinkering with human biology and there are all sorts of mutant babies in test tubes prior to the actual mutant baby they've been going for.
Paul was very upset about the fate of his Grow Shark, mad at me for messing up his toy. I accepted his outrage but felt no remorse. Did I not say many times, loudly, that the Grow Shark needed a new home? Perhaps this was a sign that we have too many toys, if nobody is listening to my requests to find a better place for this wet, tumescent monstrosity? If anyone was to blame it was Steve, not only for buying the Grow Shark but for failing to track down a bucket, baby pool or anything else for the Grow Shark to live in besides one of my tupperwares or a sink/tub that I don't want full of stagnant water to house a toy that does nothing.
"I guess I didn't realize that you were really complaining about it," Steve said, after Grow Shark had been laid to rest (Just kidding, it stayed outside on the patio furniture for a few days until I threw it away.) "I thought you were, you know, joke-complaining about it." I reminded him that my concerns about the respect of my/shared space in the house were literally well-documented, and gave him a takeaway for next time. "If I'm complaining about something, you can assume that I am really complaining about it."
RIP Grow Shark. You were too beautiful for this world. And for my Tupperware.
