Sticker balls (left), Corona virus model (right). |
I worked at the Birch Aquarium Bookshop for 14 years until I finally retired in 2015. In that time I saw the shop evolve into a gift shop, full of toys, games, artwork, delicate glass items, and hundreds of impulse boy toys for the kiddies. AndS yes, they kept books around. But parents with mewling toddlers were the rule of the day, the Aquarium needed their purchases to support their grand efforts to educate the public about Ocean preservation.
Among the kiddie toys featured in bins at the cashier stations were these items, rubber spheres composed of suction cups, which of course stuck to smooth flat surfaces. We called these things "sticky balls" (insert snicker here) and accepted that when school groups came through the store from the aquarium, toddlers, and teens would grab the balls and throw them at the counter glass.
There was a large painting of fish hanging behind the counter, which was protected by a large pane of glass. Of course, a flurry of sticky balls would be tossed at it and we would look behind us after a rush and realize the painting was covered with these multicolored spheres adhering to the protective glass; it looked as if it had broken out in Technicolor gin blossoms. They were among the many banes of my long-term Aquarium employment, and had gratefully forgotten about them.
That is, forgotten about them until the rise of the Covid pandemic. The nightmares haven't stopped since.
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