With the whole internet buzzing about the new Star Wars trailer, I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about squash.

I recently spent 5 days at my sister’s house.  That’s never a good idea.  My sister is a mechanical engineer.  I am a liberal arts major.  I know just enough science to know that mixing matter and anti-matter like that could make the universe explode.  But I’m careful, so usually it just makes her brain explode.

Case in point:  My sister had two orange squash on her dining room table.

Obviously, you can see where this is going.

You can’t?  Well, that’s okay.  Neither did she.

“Why do you have squash that look like flamingos on your dining room table?” I asked.

“They’re decorative,” she answered.  “And they don’t look like flamingos.  They look like squash.”

Challenge accepted.

The next day while my sister was at work, I happened to go walking by said dining room table.  I noticed my sister had some wire strippers and a pair of gloves sitting on the table, probably left out from working on the giant robot I’m convinced she must be secretly building.  But that’s a non-squash-related story.

My point is BAM:

Flamingo squash.

I didn’t say anything when my sister came home from work.  Eventually she noticed.

“What were you doing with my wire strippers?” she asked.

“Art!”

She looked again at the table.

“Oh, I see.  It’s a…turkey?”

Clearly I needed to up my game.

Day 2:

I was going to eat a banana when I had an even better idea.

I call it…

…FoodMingo.

That’s banana wings, a garlic paper beak, and pepperoni-stick legs.

I again played it cool when my sister got home from work.

“Ah,” she said.  “A flamingo.”

Finally!  Success!

But it was also too late, because now the daily flamingo art had become a thing.

And like Picasso’s “blue period”, this began my “garlic paper as a beak” period.  Someday there will be entire college courses engaging in passionate discord about my squash art.

Day 3:

Perhaps I should point out at this juncture that I do currently have a job.  It’s just a work-from-home job with flexible hours.  Which means if I’m willing to stay up doing actual “work” until 1am, then I can spend the better part of the day doing important things for the betterment of humanity like this:

These are all things I found on my sister’s craft table (she was clearly in the middle of sewing clothes for her giant robot) except for the garlic paper beak, which I augmented by drawing an eye on.

When she got home from work, my sister said “I see you’ve expanded into palm trees.”  But she didn’t sound sincerely impressed.  I knew I was going to have to do something big and flashy to REALLY impress her.

Day 4:

Have you ever seen the M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs?  In it, the little girl leaves glasses of water all over the house, which in the end proves to be life-saving.

I’ve never liked white socks.  I only own one pair of white socks, choosing instead to buy socks in bright colors (although I also own some black socks for stage managing and/or funerals.)  This sock thing never seemed significant until I realized it had all been leading up to this life-changing moment:

Sockmingos.  You’re welcome.

Even my one pair of white socks were needed for this classic piece of art.

You’ll notice I put down a giant piece of paper under my creation.  I did this because my sister, being an engineer, was likely to set aside the sheer awe that this sock art inspired in her soul and skip right to unimportant details like, “Why are there socks on my dining room table, where I eat food?”

Instead, when my sister came home and saw the result of my brilliance, she said, “I don’t know what to say about this.”

Speechless.  I’ll take it.

Day 5:

I was leaving my sister’s house before she got home from work.  I wanted to leave one more piece of squash art that would clearly express my true feelings.  Thus:

Because even though we don’t get to spend a lot of time together, and despite our fundamental differences, I will always love flamingos.