Melinda J. Irvine

Yesterday as Jerry was putting on his school shoes (ready to return to school after lunch break) he decided to tell me about the class project. He did it by sitting at the bottom of the stairs and calling my name, with the emphasis on dragging the syllable ‘ellll’ out, along and up into house like a clanging church bell.

“Tita Mellllllll”

“Yes Jerry”

“We have a project Tita Mel”

Annoyed I run down the stairs. “What project?”

“It’s a plastic flowers Tita Mel, we need a plastic flowers. Ma’am said.”

“And when do you need these flowers?”

“It’s today Tita Mel. Ma’am said”

Jerry thinks that adding “Ma’am said” to any sentence makes it 100% correct, inarguable and completely ok. Not this time though. I confess I was annoyed.

It turns out that “plastic flowers, ma’am said” was not something I could buy in the store and had to be handmade from used plastic soft-drink bottles. Not that I have a problem with reusing empty plastic soft-drink bottles, but don’t ‘ma’am said me‘ in the middle of a busy work day 5 minutes before the deadline.

Of course yesterday I used the ‘too bad so sad’ approach to the ‘plastic flowers ma’am said‘ project but this morning I had a change of heart (as cute 9 year olds will generally do to you). I text ‘ma’am said‘ and told her Jerry would be bringing a project after all.

So a big thanks to my friend Emelyn and her husband’s cousin Bruce for constructing this little bed of plastic flowers for Jerry’s (late) project. Jerry painted the green-drinking-straw leaves while I covered the empty-coke-bottle petals in gold glitter. It really looks rather nice.

Jerry’s asleep now and his little project sits on top of the fridge out of the reach of the cat, waiting for it’s debut in the morning.

I do wonder what Ma’am will say tomorrow?

• Daily Post: Tardy
• I’m part of Post A Day 2018
• Location: Estancia, Iloilo (Philipppines)