I Go To Pieces

Everyone knows how kids can play for hours with just a cardboard box. Who needs toys? But did you also know that kids can play with broken toys way beyond the point at which an adult would consider the toy to be trash. The particular toy I have in mind came into our house via one of the routes by which cheap plastic toys infiltrate my home - inside a goodie bag. It started life (most likely in China) as a slide whistle. Quickly though, the slide piece was separated from the whistle and it became just a whistle. It went on as a long flute-like whistle for some time, and then, after being used as a drum stick once two often, it broke in half at the point where the red mouthpiece met the yellow cylinder. You'd think that would be the end of it but since the broken stump piece still whistled it hung around the house for a while longer. Today I noticed that the mouthpiece was cracked on both the right and left side meaning that the top of the mouthpiece was collapsed down on the bottom maybe even to the point that, like a straw that gets chewed up beyond repair, no air will go in when blown into. I was going to test the theory by blowing into it to see if it worked but then I feared that I would be the one to cause the cracked sides to separate - then I would be accused (and rightly so) of breaking C's slide whistle.

song: I Go To Pieces • artist: Peter and Gordon