Silly Putty

Silly Putty, as I have come to find out, shares many similar properties with gum.  It is stretchy, mailable and now comes in multiple shades.  It isn't as sugary as gum but can be just as sticky. When stretched it forms thin strands which get tangled in hair just as easily as gum.   It does bounce when dropped, as gum does not.  However, it does have the mysterious quality of becoming lost or missing from time to time.  Despite arriving in a handy egg shape case it never seems to make it back into said case.  Silly Putty also, as I have seen first hand transfers and maintains newsprint ink on it's surface, a fact I have never tested on gum.  

Emma received a beach bucket and shovel along with assorted "prizes" from her end of the year party.  Included in the prizes was a neon green egg with an equally neon green piece of silly putty.  When we picked her up from her last day of school she was a bottle of energy, bubbling over with excitement about her goodie bucket.  She ran through the list, bubbles, play-doh, rubber ball,  stickers, temporary tattoos,  plastic grasshopper, sidewalk chalk and this green egg with "What is this stuff?"  Well, leave it to big brothers to educate their little sister.  Jack chimes in ,"Cool, it's silly putty!"  "What do you do with it?" Emma asks.  "All sorts of stuff." was Jack's reply, "Let me see it."  Jack played with it and gave everyone a synopsis of the last time he had silly putty which ended with, "Then, I don't know what happened to it."  Then it was Marks turn to look at it, after all why should Emma get to play with her toy first or even second?  Moments later screaming and crying erupt from the back seat.  What happened?  Well it appears the silly putty was dropped or thrown poorly, depending on which party you are addressing.  Never mind, that it should never be thrown in the car in the first place,  and it was declared "lost forever."  I made them both search the back seat and they uncovered nothing.  When we stopped they searched again.  Then when they got in the house I searched the third time, because the thought of green silly putty sitting in the car as it heats to over 100 degrees is frightening.  Still we uncovered nothing.  We were in and out of the car at least 3 more times after the "incident" and we still had not uncovered the mystery.  I figured it was kicked out at some point in our journey and didn't worry about it.  

Well, I found out just how wrong I was this morning.  I was up with Ginger everyone else was asleep, it was quite peaceful.  I had my coffee and was finished entertaining Ginger when I pulled out my knitting.  Yep.  I found the silly putty.  There it was in all its neon green gooeyness representing all the attributes of silly putty.  Apparently, it had become quite hot while traveling in the car and was melted on to my pink silk yarn, covering my stitch counter, my point protectors and my needles.  I don't have to tell you, how happy that made me. I took 30 minutes to scrape, peal, scrape some more, pull and tug off what I could.  Another 30 minutes was dedicated to freezer time. (it works for gum?!)  Then more scraping, and pealing.  I was able to salvage all but one poor row; in which the chemicals in the silly putty formed a bond with the silk yarn and sadly permanently glued the neon green to the fibers.  So, another 30 minutes was spent frogging and then cutting away the mottled green and pink yarn and joining a new skein. 

Emma was positively thrilled that I had uncovered the mystery of the silly putty.  She played with it all morning, stretching, pulling, molding and rolling it between her fingers.  She carried 

all over the house, not letting anyone else even think about touching it.  It had been found.  Alleluia.   Up until the time of this post I thought my adventure  with the silly putty had ended.  Then I looked upon the carpet and what should I observe.  Yep.  Green silly putty in the carpet.  I have a feeling the silly putty will be "lost" again very soon.