2002-07-29 - 3:14 p.m.

Mr. Mister, Plastic Dinosaurs, and Space Cowboys

Long before there was a band named Mr. Mister, my brother and I were at a Wendy�s restaurant and in the Happy Meal (or whatever they call it there) I got a brown1950�s big headed alien toy. When my brother asked me his name (being an older brother I knew everything about everything � including how to control the dreaded mosquito room), to which I told him as it if was a simple matter of fact: �Mr. Mister.�

Mr. Mister rode with us up to Pennsylvania and then back down to Texas. Quickly he was assimilated into our out door sandbox (note to parents: put lids on your sandboxes, your children will love you for this). In my little sandbox world Mr. Mister was soon joined by a host of other Wendy�s 1950s aliens, and together they created the plastic dinosaur meat farm. Mr. Mister, and his blue brother Dr. Doctor, would grow plastic dinosaurs, and then harvest the dino meat and ship it using old model rockets I found on the nearby golf course to the space cowboys (taken from my kid brother�s cowboy and Indian playsets), but from time to time, legions of green army men would raid the farm, the dinos would be set free, and Mr. Mister, Dr. Doctor, and the Wendy�s space community would have to save their lives and build a new farm using the pieces of dead space cowboys, broken used model rockets, and ravaged army men.

As I got older, the plastic dinos were replaced with living may flies, or june bugs, or rollie pollies. Those we didn�t kill the bugs, the may flies did have their wings clipped so they couldn�t fly away.

Kids are strange. Sandboxes are fun. While I want a sandbox, I so don�t want a kid.

LISTENING TO: Aghast View Phaseknox

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