My dad likes to send me these packages. like he'll see something in a store, like maybe a little toy or something that makes him think of me, and he'll wrap it up, and mail it to me in this giant box filled with bubble wrap, because he knows I LOVE bubble wrap.

There is never a note or anything, and the box is always covered with these designs he makes out of the rubber stamps on his desk that he uses for student's papers, so they say theater things on them.

This time, It was an hard white plastic egg, about two inches in diameter, and the package said that if you put it in water, the egg will melt away, and a giant penguin will come out! It will Grow! and Grow! And grow! (On the package, this incredible growing penguin was surrounded by these little twinkle marks, like magic fairy dust will come out of the penguin, and it will grow RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES!!

But then the directions go on to say that it take s a few days.

But still, the egg was fairly big, and i had this daydream, as I put it in water before my trip to Florida, that I would come back, and it would have grown and grown and grown, and so it would break ALL THE WINDOWS, AND ALL THE NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS WOULD COME OVER TO PLAY ON IT!

But, when i got back, no magic fairy dust had come out of it. He was just this soggy, three-inch long squishy penguin who wouldn't last a DAY in -70 degree weather to raise an egg, like in March of the Penguins.

I was sad.