Locked Down with an Art Kit
Locked Down with an Art Kit


I opened my suitcase. “Time to unpack,” I said. I got all of my clothes out and put them back in the closet. It had been two days after our internet problem, but it felt like two years. This lockdown lasted forever. I sighed at the thought of four more weeks of living in a monotone lifestyle, got the last of my clothes out, and shut my suitcase. Surprisingly, it was still heavy. I opened it again and found an art kit. I remembered it as the kit Aunt Maureen had given all of us when this lockdown started. Tamara had already used up all of her paints and pages. Pepper had kept hers in mint condition. Mine, I kept it in my suitcase and forgot about it. Since I had nothing better to do, I opened it and got the paints and the drawing book out. I set them up in the living room and went to get water.
Meanwhile, Uncle Percy had walked into the room, and seen the kit lying around. He took the pencils out and began to draw. I walked in and found uncle drawing a picture like Tyson would. I asked, “Uncle did you draw that?” “Yes. Yes, I did.” He turned back to his drawing and continued. Tamara came into the room and got mad at me. “You gave the kit to uncle, but not me!” I tried to pacify her. “Uncle found the kit! I didn’t give it to him. Until half an hour ago, I didn’t even know I had it.” Since the uncle was already painting, we decided to call Pepper and aunt. Then we could all do art together.
Pepper came, but she wanted to do a different type of art: Nail art. Aunt had an idea. “Why don’t we turn the living room into an art center,” she suggested. “The coffee table can be painting, the recliner can be nail art, the sofa can be doodling, the rug can be sand art, and the TV unit can be origami.” We liked the idea and set to work decorating the living room. Pepper made two origami cranes and stuck them to a banner which said origami. Tamara made the nail art banner and stuck her own fake nails onto them. “I hope you’re happy,” she sniffed. “I gave up all my fake nails for the nail art center. What do I wear now?” “Here’s an idea. Nail paint,” Aunt Maureen shouted at Tamara.
While Tamara was harping about her ‘brilliant sacrifice,’ uncle decided to bring out his inner artist. He started to make the main sign. He took a bunch of pages and wrote an alphabet on each of them. “A-R-T C-O-N-V-E-N-T-I-O-N,” it read. Then uncle took a string and began to staple the letters on them. They turned into, ‘O-V-E-R-A-C-T-I-O-N,’ with a few letters left out. He made them into paper planes and gave them to the triplets.
We made the rest of the signs, and then hung them all up. Aunt see
med to be unfazed when she saw what uncle had done. “Well, I think we should let the sign stay. After all, with this family at the convention, there will be a whole lot of ‘overaction’.”
When we got all the decorations and art supplies in place, we went to the station we wanted. Of course, uncle went to every station. He began with the sand art section. He ripped open a pack of colored sand. And spilled it everywhere except his container. He took another packet and poured it in carefully. Then he took the wax to seal the first layer of sand in, and prevent it from mixing with the other colors. The sand art station was followed with no further disaster.
Next, he went to the painting station. I was managing this one. So I set him up. He dipped his brush in water, and he spilt water all over the place. I got him a fresh page, and this time, a pot of water, which has a very tiny openable slot. Hopefully, he wouldn’t spill any water. But I forgot to pray he wouldn’t spill paint. And that is precisely what happened. He took the first tube of puffy paint, pressed it with so much force, it sprayed everywhere. I decided it was safer to send him to the next station.
Uncle went to the sofa, to do doodling. But he forgot his clipboard. So when he started drawing, the ink seeped through the page and stained the brand new sofa with a very bad doodle. (We got rid of the sofa we bought in ‘Uncle Percy Buys Furniture’. It was damaged, so they sent a genuine leather sofa bed.) Uncle began wailing. Aunt came to the rescue. She completed the doodle on the sofa and made it into a huge floral pattern. At this rate, though, uncle was on the brink of being kicked out of the convention. Sorry, overaction. Yep, aunt still isn’t over it.
The next station uncle went to was NAIL ART. Tamara didn’t even look at the customer. She just took his hand and began to paint his nails. When she was done, she realized she did Uncle Percy’s nails. Not that she cared. She was still not over her fake nails and was such a killjoy that no one asked for the nails. They just painted them and went on to the next station, origami.
At the origami station, uncle had a square of paper with ten holes, each with a finger in them. He finally finished with the convention and left the room. But with his manicure, he tried to get out of his chores for a week. But that, of course, is an entirely different story for an entirely different time. Ok I know, I can’t be the guy who narrates Winnie the Pooh. So let’s have a typical Uncle Percy ending. I hope he doesn’t get out of his chores. Cause then, we’ll have to do them.