I just blogged about this, so I’m going to copy & paste from that. It must be shared.
A week ago I came up with the brilliant idea of making a pinata for my birthday. My brother suggested shaping it like the Hippopotobat, which seemed perfect to me. For those of you who don’t know, the Hippopotobat is an old acquaintance of mine from way back in 3rd form, with the head of a hippo, bat wings and fangs. He made several appearances in a couple of little notebooks I kept that year and the next. I thought he had gone away forever, but it looks like he’s making a return for the sole purpose of being smashed open.
I got to work on the pinata a couple of days later. By yesterday, I had completed several layers and stuck on the ears. I had also filled him with chocolate coins (appropriate, no?) and covered up the hole at the top of his head. I left him to dry, and went to go do something else in the meantime. I didn’t realise I had made a fatal mistake…
I LEFT MY DOOR OPEN!
Yes, I, bundykala, owner of the Pig Dog, left a pile of chocolate encased in a shell of (still slightly moist) newspaper exposed and unguarded in the middle of my room. Of course, little Lipo made a beeline straight for it when his nose informed him of its presence. Luckily, I caught him before he’d had a chance to do much damage. He did manage to tear off both the ears and rip them to shreds, leaving them strewn around the room, and create a huge gash in the Hippopotobat’s head where it was still wet. He didn’t manage to get to any of the chocolate though. That’s a good thing, of course, but the whole mess could have been avoided and he wouldn’t have had any less success.
So yeah, the first thing I did when I caught him was to stand there and gape for a second, before letting out an enraged yell that achieved the intended result of making the dog stop maiming my pinata. The second thing I did was remove him from my room (he wasn’t happy about that, he likes it there), shut the door and stand there gaping at the hole again. Then I sent all my Vodafone friends a mass angry text about how Brandy got to my pinata.
Well, I worked on it today and you may be pleased to learn that I managed to restore it to its previous state, with the addition of fangs. I managed to save one of its ears, as a matter of fact, but the other one was too badly torn up to do anything about it, so I made him a fresh one. Tomorrow it should be ready to paint. I’ll add the wings on first though. And this time I’ll leave the door shut.