Story Land welcomed me back into the working world after my four days of readjusting to civilisation with a lovely little 9 hour stint at 'Duck'. Before I even got to the duck pond (well, 'duck pond') I was informed that a frog had been living in the vicinity, which was just what I needed - wildlife jumping out to frighten me when I least expected it. Thankfully, I didn't see the frog all day, although it didn't stop me thinking that I had seen it out of the corner of my eye and running into things as I tried to make a hasty exit from the building. Kind of like when people see shadows and tell everyone they've seen a ghost. I say people, I mean absolute mentalists. But I, digress. At the start of the day, I tried my hardest to make the prospect of picking two rubber ducks out of some water for the prize of being lumbered with a soft toy that would give any one the heebie-jeebies in a dark room as exciting as is humanly possible. At the end of the day, my introduction to the game went something along the lines of: 'Two ducks. Two numbers. Prize.' 

Several of my favourite regular Duck occurrences are as follows*:

1) When an awful Veruca Salt of a child wins a small prize having just witnessed the child before them skipping away with an extra-large one.

2) When said child throws a temper tantrum and lies down in the middle of the floor refusing to move.

3) When I sit said child down and explain to them that the only person who is ever going to win in this situation is me because all fairground games are designed so that there is a one in a million chance that you ever win anything worth winning. And that they must accept that, even if they stand there all day and pay me thousands of dollars, they are never going to walk out of the gates with a huge inflatable duck under their arm. And that the duck game, as a whole, is simply a metaphor for life itself and sooner or later they will have to accept that life's a bitch and then you die.

4) When the park's closing announcement goes off at 6 o' clock and I can run for the hills. (Before they catch me and drag me, kicking and screaming, to Yum-Yum Junction to stay until the bitter end).

Today, I was in Let's Pretend. Or as I now like to call it: home. My day started off on a positive note: a man came over to me and said, 'Hey, you were at the ducks yesterday, weren't you? My son loves you!' I immediately turned around to see who the devil he was talking to when I realised that there was no one behind me and so the only person in the firing zone of his vocal emission was me. Little old pessimistic me who fails to radiate any waves of joy or happiness had become the subject of a toddler's loving. I could barely believe my ears. I went over my new buddy and we had a right old chinwag before he attempted to shoot me with a toy gun.

The rest of the day was spent protecting my works of art that I had created throughout the store by shouting after the children, 'YOU LOOK WITH YOUR EYES, NOT YOUR HANDS!' (in my head, naturally). I consequently had a great idea: the Let's Pretend princess section would be a lot better if I constructed a picket fence enclosing me and my displays whereby children could form a neat line around the fence in order to take a look at what's available. Then, when they were ready to make a purchase, they would ask me nicely to lift their item of choice out from within the display and pop it into a bag for them to carry out of the store. Everyone's a winner. And mucky fingers will be kept from closing every single trinket box I have deliberately left open and ruining my 'scattered treasure' effect. (Other effects include giant, flying, cape-wearing unicorn, distressed teddies falling out of barrel and fairy wand floral (-esque) vase arrangement. You have to see it to believe it).