Rebranding needed, or When good art supplies go bad

Mr D, slave-driver that he is, made me open a few more packing boxes in my office this weekend. He's doing me a favor, really, because we have to make room for even more boxes to be delivered this Wednesday.

Yes, it's true. The moving company somehow misplaced a portion of our stored goods. Seven long years, these 20 tonnes of items were stored, and in May, upon our return to the states, they were delivered back to our house. (Along with the 18 tonnes of stuff we'd dragged all over the globe with us.) When one of the large crates (6' x 6' x 8') turned up empty, the moving guys shrugged and said, "Awww, it was probably just an administrative error. Ya got all yer stuff, right?"

And we looked around our house and figured, "Yup, we sure did." Because there wasn't another free inch to shoehorn even one more thing into the house at that point.

A month or so later, I remembered we'd had two filing cabinets. And another bookcase or two. And a little table. And ... gosh, what else? I called the movers, and the admin guy said, "Fill out a claim, but really, if the label fell off the crate, we have no way of locating it."

Mentally, I kissed it all goodbye.

And then two days before Christmas, Steve the Admin guy rang saying, "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, we found your crate. The bad news is, I don't think you have any room left in your house."

Ho ho ho, Steve. How right you are. Merry Christmas.

Anyhow, in the mad rush to finish unpacking the first and second shipments to make way for the third, I unpacked a box of art supplies and old art projects.

"Mom, what are you doing?" shrieked Tarquin Jr, as he looked at the kit strewn about the place.

"Uh... speedballing?"

Artists. So decadent.

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