Another day, another customer who tumbles out of my closet, begging to be relieved from his duties as though it was slavery.
I really wanted to do a horribly ugly plush I had acquired from MGM Las Vegas in 1993, but somehow, the very notion that I held in my position a nineteen-year-old plush from MGM makes it hard for me to part with. Funnily enough, I keep nearly accidently forgetting a decade, and I had almost claimed it was nine years old. If that were the case, I would be thirteen. Ha. Funny.
So I copped out and went with a much safer option. A silly little puppet I bought while visiting an Australian souvenir store. I don’t know why, exactly, I saw fit to purchase him, and he really hasn’t had much use in this life. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Goo the boxing kangaroo requested reprieve.
The name Goo is a moniker I gave him, because like most toys I believe to be unlicensed, he didn’t exactly come with a robust profile. Officially speaking, he’s really just ‘kangaroo with boxing gloves’.
He doesn’t particularly inspire me to type anything of pertinence as he sits here in my lap, staring at me with those big, glassy eyes. He’s fun to wiggle around and reshape, but I quickly grow tired of that.
As I mentioned previously, my fiancé is a grade 2 teacher this year, so I’m hoping in earnest that she can find a way to integrate him into the classroom. In grade 2, we were taught lessons by a parrot named Zazoop. We wanted to call him Zazu, but the teacher had this weird vendetta against infringing copyright.
Zazoop taught us not to talk to strangers, or get into cars with people we didn’t know. As near as I recall, these things were all illustrated by some really sinister-looking pictures. They were monochrome and depressing… The expressions told nothing… The world they portrayed was blotchy, inky and empty. This was either the world of pedophilia, or rejects from the easel of Stephen Gammell.
Mild exaggeration, although I certainly wouldn’t get in a car with that man. At the very least, I doubt he’s a cautious driver.
Our buddy Goo here, however, will regale students with tales about how to be a better friend, and how to conduct oneself in the classroom. Because this is much more fun, and doesn’t throw my childhood askew as badly as the last paragraph does. Though if I may make a creative suggestion, I would cast Goo in the crucial role of mischievous foil. The little devil on the shoulder who tries to lead us astray, but fails due to our commitment to morals.
Because, for crying out loud, he’s a boxing kangaroo. He embodies the miserable world of illegal animal fighting rings, and he’s probably drunk all the time. We’ll omit that last detail from the classroom, however.
Goo only holds one secret, and it’s obviously a very well hidden secret, because until literally right after I had finished that last sentence, I had never noticed it. This secret is, of course, that Goo’s head is filled with tye-dyed fabric, and frankly, this could mean anything.
Was he once a pillow of some sort? Did he murder a hippie during an inebriated stupor, and hide the evidence within his very noggin? It’s hard to say. In fact, it’s impossible to say, and if you could possibly defy this notion, then… please don’t. I don’t care enough to argue your factual evidence with my theories of cushions and dead flower people.
…Stephen Gammell imagery resurfacing… Oh dear god…
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