Back in 2013, I took my daughter and another young woman to Chincoteague / Assateague for a day trip.
Moon Unit found a loose piece of asphalt - about 14 inches across, in the sandy area near the parking lot. She and the other girl got rather silly - decided to name the asphalt “Jerry”, and announced that Jerry was her boyfriend. They snuck Jerry into the car.
Jerry has been in our garage for the past 7 years. My husband would occasionally grumble about the useless boyfriend - doesn’t work, doesn’t help around the house, just hangs out in the garage. Moon Unit would respond with “You just don’t like Jerry because he’s BLACK!”. Which was blatantly untrue - Jerry is more of a mottled gray.
Moon Unit moved out a couple years back. We’d forgotten about Jerry - until we spotted him a plastic bin in the garage.
We’d like to turn him into some useful (or at least entertaining) household object. Yeah, a lot of parents have wanted to skin their daughter’s boyfriends and turn them into rugs, but I don’t think Jerry would be especially useful as a rug.
What could we do to preserve Jerry? I had a vague idea of trying to build some sort of framework, pouring clear resin over it, and turning Jerry into a trivet. Bear in mind, we’re not particularly “handy” people - I mean, we have power tools (though not a power saw) but we don’t do real woodworking or anything.
How ‘big’ is this boyfriend? Would a shadow box work?
At least a gallon of casting resin, not the cheap stuff, the deep pour version, could cost at least $100. You probably don’t need the best casting on earth for your daughter’s useless old boyfriend but it’s a pretty big piece to start your first casting with. I guess it could be worth it if you think they may get back together again some day. Maybe you just need to put some urethane varnish on him and glue stuff to him. A few wooden knobs on the bottom make feet, a piece of wood on top to make a cutting board or cheese tray or something.
AT&T Lily recommends googly eyes.
Hah! Googly eyes might be the default answer.
And I’m sure quite a lot of parents wish they could cast their daughter’s boyfriend - though a sack of cement (just enough for the feet) would be sufficient and a lot cheaper than casting resin. I had no idea the stuff was so spendy.
I wonder how it would go if I got some inexpensive concrete to form a base, then urethaned the top. I could probably do something with plastic bags / foil to make a form-fitting mold to pour the concrete, pour the mix in, then set Jerry on top to let it set. Think that’d work? If so, it would do as a trivet. Slightly more elaborate: a bit of plywood, if I could get it shaped to fit Jerry, plus a thin layer of concrete, to form the base?
A shadow box would work except I wonder if asphalt might crumble under its own weight - the bottom edge bearing all of the weight of the piece.
I’ll have to dig Jerry out of the bin this weekend to get a better idea of what his underside looks like and how flat his top is. The kid is looking at some minor surgery in a couple of months and I think having Jerry on hand would make a nice get-well gift, so I need to get cracking on this.
Maybe get a bunch of googly eyes, break it up into smaller pieces and make “Jerry’s Kids”…
Well…when a Daddy piece of asphalt and a Mommy piece of asphalt love each other very much…pavement ensues.
Typo Knig walked in as I was reading this and chuckling. He said “But they have to get smashed first”. We are all going to hell.
As a side note: the other young lady was a college student from Quebec.
While she was staying with us, we did a weekend trip to NYC - where, among other things, we saw Avenue Q. We were also accompanied by another student from Moon Unit’s high school.
Those of you familiar with the show may recall this charming ditty:
[spoiler]Avenue Q - My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada - YouTube (warning, Youtube and NSFW).
After the show, we had the opportunity to donate money and have our picture taken with a cast member - Rod (and his puppeteer), who performed the spoilered song.
So as they were setting up the camera, the actor chatted with us. “Where are you all from?” “Virginia”.,“Virginia”, “Virginia”, “… uh, Canada”. We all howled.
To this day, our Canadian student speaks fondly of her gay boyfriend.
So yeah, those girls could really pick 'em.
Today I learned two new words: “trivet” and “shadow box”.
Take Jerry to a good quality florist or landscape greenhouse and have him incorporated into a terrarium? Then he could he sit on her bedside table to comfort her. At the least he would have brought her flowers.
Whatever you do he needs a label that reads, “Jerry - 100% carbon footprint”.