The Halloween Before Christmas

First night in HK. I stumbled upon that mini Heeren in Mongkok and got me two different sets of The Nightmare Before Christmas toys. They were still the best finds of my trip. When I returned to my room that night, eagerly and gingerly opening up my christmas of toys, I found that Zero came in two pieces instead of one; one of its ears was broken off. At the risk of sounding a little exaggerated, I was really upset. Of all pieces, my favorite piece of the set had to be broken.

So just now, for the last two hours, I had been trying to supa glue back on broken ear. And I realized, sometimes fixing it okay the first time round might also be the best time for you to stop trying to 'fix it better'.

I did managed to get the ear back on but the broken line was rather obvious. So I took it off and did it again. I repeated the procedure a couple more times, determined to make my pumpkin-nosed ghost dog look as perfect as it could be.

But it didn't. With each time I took it off and tried to glue it back on again, a layer of glue would attach itself to the broken ends. I tried to wash away the glue. It didn't help. Scrape it away. Minimum improvement. Soon it was not about masking the line into invisibility, but to have the ear back on Zero without it looking like an alien piece of antenna sticking out of him. In the end, Operation Zero became a Michael Jackson surgery improvement scenario.

The more I tried to better it, the worse it became.

And now, as I sit here typing this, the pumpkin-nose is sitting on the table staring sadly back at me.

Lonely with just one flying ear.