It said mom's mushrooms on the box. "I want some mushrooms!" Sam declared. "It's probably just the box, buddy. There probably won't be any mushrooms." I said.
I grabbed a pair of scissors and set to work. The tape was a nightmare to cut through. It seriously must have been SUPER TAPE. Tape made with titanium threads or something! I got one flap free and noticed a note with RANSOM LETTERS on it. So I pulled it out:
Oo what fun! I grabbed the camera and started cutting in to the rest of the tape again.
Locksley had shown immediate interest in the box, and as soon as the flaps were free he buried his nose right in it.
There was a LOT of packing paper in there.
I carefully removed each crumpled wad - feeling to make sure there was nothing inside them. "There'd BETTER be mushrooms in there!" Sam hollered.
Suddenly! A wad heavier than the others! I unfurled it:
It was the CAP to a mushroom. With no stem. We removed more paper but no little correlative stem! Instead a HUGE MASS of bubble wrap!
"I don't think this is a mushroom! Maybe that was left over? or put there to throw us off?" I conjectured.
I heaved the bubble wrapped item out of the box. It was pretty heavy!
"What *is* it?!" I wondered.
"You are taking TOO LONG to open it!!" Sam cried. Back to opening!
I removed the first piece of tape. The bubble wrap peepshow had begun! Carefully, I pulled the taped bubble wrap off, starting with the loosest piece on the left.
It unveiled a textured, jutting structure.
By this time my hypothesis was that it was a bone of some kind. Was it a REAL bone? It must be. There was some dirt, or maybe sand? at the bottom of the bubble wrap.
Pulling back more of the tape, I saw an eye socket. A skull of some kind! But what? It was from Hawaii - maybe it was a sea creature of some sort? Locksley gave it a discerning lick.
I started at the other end of the bubble wrap. If the left side was the back of the skull, the right side must be the nose. And if I could see the nose, I'd be able to tell if it was a sea creature, I was pretty certain!
The nose! There was a tag attached. Should I look at it and ruin the surprise?
I pulled apart the last remaining bubble wrap piece. The anticipation!!
A SKULL! A BIG SKULL. Could it be my most coveted bone OF ALL TIME? Maybe it was just a cow or something?
Locksley thoroughly examined the eye socket, resting his nose right inside. If he knew what it was, he wasn't saying anything.
I had to check the tag:
IT WAS! HORRAY! HORRAY! A horse skull!
Not just a horse skull, but a beautiful one. Textured, textured, textured - the perfect blend of white bone and grey and green. It had such character! It was like a sculpture, or a painting!
"Where are we going to put it?" husband and I machinated. The best spot in the house, of course! On top of the bookcase! And, being the art kids that we are - we had to compose the arrangement.
Brilliant!! What an amazing gift and an exceptional surprise! Who could be the clever individual(s) responsible? I suspect the origin of the package is the biggest clue...
4 comments:
Forgot to mention! While trying to guess what the heck it could be I kept saying "Is it the Fiji Mermaid?!"
no - something WAY cooler.
SUPERB REPORT!!! That was the funnest thing to read, ever! I couldn't (and can't) stop grinning.
haha! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope it was half as fun to read as it was actually experiencing :) You're the BEE'S KNEES!
Since the horse was from Hawaii, I wonder if he (or she) was a paniolo's horse? Either that or a racehorse named Mom's Mushrooms! You know how racehorses usually have weird names. I don't think they have racehorses in Hawaii, but it did get to you pretty quick. It was supposed to take 4-6 weeks and it was under four. Every little while, I'd muse out loud, "I wonder how the horse head's doing?" and we'd imagine it slowly travelling along on a long boat voyage, enjoying its journey. And whenever we'd drive by the place where we found it, we'd mutter, "Horse head." "Horse head."
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