Porcupine Egg (260/365)

 
“If you start throwing hedgehogs under me, I shall throw a couple of porcupines under you.”

Nikita Khrushchev (First secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1894-1971)

TIME:  6:47 PM
PLACE:  School playground
SUBJECT:  American sweet gum tree fruit

This is a photo that I took yesterday at the school open house.  The tree with the octopus roots is an American sweet gum tree.  This is its fruit which is also known as a “gumball”, “monkey ball”, “space bug”, "porcupine eggs” or as my kids call them when they turn brown, “cocoa puffs”.  I remember gathering up tons of these spiky balls with my brothers and the neighborhood kids and then we would heave them at each other.  Take it from me, those suckers sting.

Thanks For The Gumball Popeye! (360/365)

 
Willy Wonka: Don't you know what this is?
Violet Beauregarde: By gum, it's gum.
Willy Wonka: [happily, but sarcastically] Wrong! It's the most amazing, fabulous, sensational gum in the whole world.
Violet Beauregarde: What's so fab about it?
Willy Wonka: This little piece of gum is a three-course dinner.
Mr. Salt: Bull.
Willy Wonka: No, roast beef. But I haven't got it quite right yet.

Stuart, Mel. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Perf. Gene Wilder, Denise Nickerson and Roy Kinnear. David L. Wolper Productions. 1971. 

TIME:  2:05 PM
PLACE:  The window seat
SUBJECT:  Gumball machine

We (DramaQueen and I) did wake up at the butt crack of dawn and made the trek to the mall for some after-Christmas shopping.  We didn’t do too much damage; I picked up a couple of ornaments, some T-shirts and pillows for the living room couch.  Oh, yes and a festive gold tinsel tree to hold more thrifty ornaments.  The tree I bought at Dillard's where people were stinking nuts!  They were buying the German ornaments and nutcrackers by the boxful – to resell on eBay later I  bet’cha.  While I was there, I picked up a couple of 4lb boxes of gumballs to fill our gumball machine.  It’s been empty since early September.  Now MonkeyBoy & StellaDella are scrounging the house for nickels to put in it.