INSERT EVIL LAUGHTER HERE

My friend and I decide to take a spontaneous trip into Boston for lunch.  Her daughter works at one of the restaurants in Seaport and we haven't been on an adventure in a while, so we combine the elements of bored minds with empty stomachs.  It takes us a while to secure seats because the restaurant is both trendy and a tourist destination, but once we settle in, we treat ourselves to a pleasant lunch and some time bantering with my friend's daughter and fellow employees.

Once we leave the restaurant, we wander around the waterfront for a short while.  A woman stops us and asks us for directions to the Home Show.  She can't seem to find it, and she is standing on the sidewalk while absently overlooking the harbor.  We point her to the World Trade Center and decide to follow her inside.  After all, my friend just remodeled her entire kitchen, so she is in construction withdrawal.

There are all types of vendors inside the Trade Center at the Home Show.  In addition to the usual window, bath, kitchen, and hot tub booths, there are booths for jewelry, chocolate, pain gels, and things that just don't seem like they belong at a home trade show.  My friend engages in conversation with one of the vendors when suddenly something bounces and rolls toward my feet.  I look down at it when the random item stops after hitting my right sneaker.

It is a brain.  Yes, a brain. 

Sitting up against my foot is a miniature purple foam brain.  A saleswoman scurries over as I lean down to pick up the brain.  "I'm so sorry," she says, watching me examine the object.  She hesitates and then adds, "Uh, you can have it if you want.  We're giving them away.  It's a stress ball."

This.  Is.  Everything. 

I have students who are allowed to carry and play with stress balls during classes and at assemblies.  Their stress balls are usually the standard ones: red, foamy, and slightly bloated like a drunken clown's nose.  My newly acquired stress ball is so very much cooler.  It is an honest-to-god purple brain. 

I am currently on the tail end of a week-long winter break.  I go back to school tomorrow, and, under normal circumstances, the thought of returning to work would be a cause for slight agida.  Not this time, though.  I cannot wait to get back to school and perch my new purple foam stress ball brain on my desk.  I also cannot wait until I get an opportunity to use it. 

I can see it now: "You call THAT a stress ball?  Look at THIS!  It's a brain.  A BRAIN!  A PURPLE SQUISHY BRAIN!"  I'll squeeze the brain in my hand until the purple veins ooze from between my fingers, then I'll let it retract and do it again and again.  I'll hold my brain-oozing fist in the air and shake it while laughing maniacally like I'm Dr. Frankenstein.  "It's ALIVE!!!!  ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!"

Then, if I haven't been fired already, I'll convince all of my students to bombard their guidance counselors with requests for purple squishy foam stress brains.  It will be awesome.  It will be like Alice's Restaurant only for middle schoolers.  It will be like a movement, a cause, a celebration.

All it takes, apparently, is a decent lunch in the city and attendance at a home show to keep me entertained.  Don't you dare pre-warn my students.  I'm anxious to see who will be first to notice the purple stress brain when school starts up again.  (Insert evil laughter here.)