Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Perler Tricks

After a particularly...discouraging day at work, I had a few choices on how to purge myself of the sour mood I was in when I got home.  Option one was nothing more than pouring myself a pint glass of Maker's Mark and drinking myself into an alcohol induced semi-coma.  Being unconscious would have made it nearly impossible to dwell on the mind-boggling events that transpired earlier, but since I'm way out of whiskey practice I would go from coma to dead in a hurry...and there would be barfing somewhere in there as well.  Not good times.  My second option was to internalize and suppress my close to boiling over emotions below the surface, keeping the lid on that pressure cooker filled with disbelief and ineffectual rage until something minor and unrelated to the days events set me off like a mixture of nitroglycerin and weapons grade plutonium...something minor and unrelated like stepping barefoot onto fake vampire teeth one of the kids left on the floor.  The third option was to just say 'eff it', talk out what happened with The Better Half, and come up with a plan to address it all...and then sit down with her and Maddy and create a colorful creation using perler beads and a fish pattern.

I went with the third option, but that came with a whole new set of frustrations.  Perler beads are, in a word, bullsh*t.  For someone with less than dainty hands, they are a biznatch to manipulate.  Placing them on the pattern requires the deft touch and subtle dexterity of a surgeon.  I am not a surgeon.  My hands are beaten, gnarled atrocities that cramp up using chop sticks if I'm not careful.  When the beads do finally get placed on the pattern, so much as breathing on them unseats them from the pegs.  Then there is the ironing.  Due to my time in the Air Force, I can iron like a mofo.  What I can't do, however, is follow simple instructions...such as only turning the iron to medium heat.  I set the iron to razor sharp crease on the dress blues and partially melted my fish creation.  Luckily, that was only one side....not so lucky was my decision to pick my melty plastic fish up.  It was hot...and melted plastic sticks to skin.  And that's all I have to say about that.

Anyhoo, being stooped over a pile of perler beads took my mind off work.  Now I'm just thinking about the throbbing pain in the middle of my shoulder blades and the back of my neck.  So I have that going for me...

I'm not going to recommend perler beads as a stress reliever to anyone...but if you do want to partake in an activity that will frustrate you in an entirely different manner than whatever it was that angered up your blood, then perler beads are the way to go.  Buy them here!    

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