Rain Man

Piggy and I went out for the day in Manchester whilst Kerry met friends for cocktails and ting. We thought we’d go to the City Art Gallery again, that way we could get something nice to eat, we could change Piggy’s bum and then have a play in the interactive area.

Whilst we were in the interactive area we played with different coloured wooden blocks and I tried to explain to Piggy the principles of bridge building demonstrating the positive effects of gravity. 

A woman entered the room with a very hyper-active kid, I think it was a girl. The woman slumped in a corner on a beanbag and began to navigate her smart phone whilst her child enjoyed the delights of the interactivity. Of all the things she could have interacted with she came to where me and Piggy were playing and began to collect all the wooden blocks. There were 3 types of blocks all of which had separate storage containers attached to the wall and the kid was separating the blocks methodically and putting them back in the containers.

"I’m taking these away”, she said as she grabbed the surplus blocks to our bridge. “He won’t be needing them, he’s only young”, referring to Piggy. 

She then started to witter on in a crazy kind of way, so much so that Piggy looked at me with gritted teeth and smiled with his expression saying, “Fuckin ell! We’ve got a right one ere!”.

On the wall were hundreds of hooks all containing shapes that you could remove and make your own shape creation (they were too angular to make a spunkin nob, I would have done that right away if it was possible!). Once she had stored away all of the wooded blocks her attention turned to the wall. She started collecting all of the shapes from the wall and the other children and began putting them in order. Piggy and I got more blocks from the storage units whilst her back was turned in order to build a bigger bridge. 

I presumed she was autistic or something and then felt guilty for silently saying to myself, “You’re a right pain in the arse mate!”. But many kids were be over-powered by her presence and they were becoming upset with her actions. And I know it isn’t the fault of the child, the mother should have been involving herself instead of pissing about on her phone. 

And then I felt guilty for wanting to shout, “Oy, are you gonna get a grip of Rain Man or what?”, but then I would have been the bad guy!

"Piggy with Hula Hoop Fingers"

"Piggy with Marshmallow"