the wood glue saga: childhood revealed part 1

there was this one time my brother matt got a little tool set with wood and nails and sand paper and such to create little crafts with. i was insanely jealous of this. and i'm not sure if he was coerced or just felt sorry for me, but at any rate he would let me build some stuff with it sometimes. but not too much stuff. and i was limited on which pieces of wood of i could use: if matt thought he might need that particular piece for a later project, i was forbidden to use it. also, i was only allowed to use small tiny pieces of sand paper (conservation people...lets not even get started on the easter candy issues), while i craved to use the entire big sheet. if only i'd had my own set, i could have done things my way. but as it is, i guess i'm pretty lucky he shared at all.

i dont remember the exact argument. i'm pretty sure it had something to do with either conserving particular pieces of wood or that darn sand paper, but one day matt infuriated me. and i apologize for not remembering the exact sequence of events but i do know they ended in me taking his wood glue and squirting it out viciously in a nice little decoration on our back patio concrete. muwahaha. if i couldnt be wasteful with the sand paper, i was going to waste as much of his kit as i could. matt was devastated, as i had planned. but he also threw a wrench in my plan by announcing (news to me) that this was not going to come off the concrete. i was just trying to show him what true wastefulness was so he could agree that i could use more parts of his tool kit, i didnt mean to permanently affix a whole bottle of wood glue to our porch.

matt assured me that i was going to be in great trouble because it would be impossible to get that up. my dad inevitably noticed my artwork and asked how it got there. i honestly can't remember if i said it was an accident and matt covered for me, or if i said it was an accident and my dad said that such a design could not have happened 'by accident', or if i confessed my belligerent act and got in trouble for it, or if this is complete news to my dad. at any rate, the wood glue, as matt foretold, was impossible to get up, though i think my dad tried several times, and probably can still be seen there on that porch on vicky street in big spring. i just wanted to make something out of wood, the way i wanted to make it, being as wasteful as i desired. instead i made a different kind of craft: concrete wood glue painting. sigh.