The Tragedy of Humpty Dumpty

Since childhood, I've had a certain love/hate relationship with Humpty Dumpty, maybe even what you might call an affinity for the poor guy. Or at least an understanding of his tragic plight. For you see, Mr. Dumpty is kind of a sad creature, just a yolk shy of being pathetic. I mean, honestly...why in hell is a guy made out of a fragile egg sitting on a wall in the first place? Just plain stupid. But as one who identifies with Humpty's outsider status and applauds his do-it-his-way mentality, I can't help but overlook his idiotic life choices. (It's a pity that to this day, my childhood book of nursery rhymes scarred me for life; I still vividly remember Humpty's corpse laying broken on the ground with yolk and his life force oozing out of him. Hardly what I'd consider a happy childhood bedtime tale. What's wrong with these fairy tale writers?)

But it seems that my lifelong acquaintance with Mr. Dumpty still continues to this day. 

It all began with a crappy horror film from the 80's (as so many incidents in our house do). Now, my wife doesn't share my excitement for crummy genre films, but something about "Bloodsuckers From Outer Space" drew her in, the dumb comedy aspect of it, I'm sure. In the movie a character was wandering about a kitchen and we both noticed a particularly ugly cookie jar.

"That cookie jar," said my wife. "What...what it is?"

Squinting at the screen, I replied, "I'm pretty sure that's Humpty Dumpty. I think." I felt fairly confident in my answer, seeing as how I'm one of the world's foremost experts on Humpty Dumpty.

"Sure is creepy," she said.

"I know, right? But it's cool! I like it! Don't you like it?"

My wife waffled around a while, before finally committing. "Yeah, I guess."

So inspiration struck me, harder than Dumpty's smashing into the ground. With Christmas just weeks away, I thought it'd make a funny and surprising gift for my wife. Off to the intronets I trawled, finally hitting pay-dirt. Sure enough, Ebay sellers were putting up their "vintage Humpty Dumpty collectible cookie jars" for sale, albeit at exorbitant prices.

But I found one on Mercari, an Ebay knockoff, at a cheaper, more affordable price. 

Here's what arrived...

Crap. So off I went to Mercari to get a refund. (Hang on a minute...it's time for a rant.) Now...have you guys ever ordered from Mercari? Word of advice: DON'T. Their website is incredibly confusing (purposefully so, I think) to navigate and it's next to impossible to contact an actual customer service rep. I tried to go through their proper channels, but the site wouldn't let me. All requests for refunds are channeled through a robot. The robot told me "I'm sorry, you have no purchases with us." What??? Tell that to PayPal, you stoopid robot! So I tried to contact the seller (and I should've known something was up because he goes by the name "Charlie Brown"). The seller responded and said, "Just go through the process online." But I couldn't because they didn't think I made a purchase! So, I carefully pored over the website looking for an email address or phone number. Wait...there it is! "Contact us!" So I hit the shiny contact button annnnnnnnd...it took me back to the robot who insisted I didn't buy a broken Humpty Dumpty. With exactly zero phone numbers or email addresses on the website, I turned to Dr. Google. The good doctor Google turned up a phone number. I called it and after punching in my phone number and all sorts of other stuff, the robot returned with "I'm sorry. Customer service is not available in your area." Whaaaaaaaa?

So I went back to good ol' Charlie Brown and pleaded my case. Suddenly my messages to Charlie on Mercari were being deleted by the administration 'bots. By this time, I'm livid, working myself up into a lather. Finally, I found an email address online and sent them an angry message. Two days later, someone overseas writes back and tells me all the hoops I have to jump through by taking fifty pictures of packaging (which was nothing more than empty Amazon boxes) and sending them. And get this...they said in order to get a refund, I had to do it within twelve hours. So...I knocked out the photos and sent them immediately. Only to wait another two days for a reply. (They must really, REALLY be far overseas since there's always a 48 hour time lag). Anyway, after much more give and take and frustration, I finally--FINALLY--got a refund. (Rant over...now back to our regularly scheduled post...)

As I looked at the shattered pieces of Humpty and my shattered dream of giving it to my wife sank in, the irony of it all struck me: I'm going to do what all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't do! I'd put Humpty Dumpty back together again! It'll be fun, I stupidly thought.

Now, this was my first time working with epoxy. Nobody told me of the intricate and tricky nature of it. I just thought simple, squeeze it out, stick the pieces together, boom! Instant Humpty Dumpty. But no. You had to work with it fast or the actual package and nozzle gets glued together, disabling any chance of ever getting any more of it out of the tube. I went through three tubes, singlehandedly keeping the epoxy manufacturers in business. And good luck getting it off your hands.

As I screamed and cursed and thought how stupid I was for thinking this would be "fun," Humpty caved in on me several times. I started over four times. That's perseverance! Let's see the lazy king's horses do that! (And for God's sake, why is the king letting his horses operate on an egg-man? I don't believe their hooves are known for their surgical dexterity.)

Finally, I finished. Or at least as good as it was gonna get. I had to finally give up on all of the small pieces on the back of his head as they just wouldn't take. But here's the finished result...

Sure, he kinda looks like a freakish Batman villain, or maybe one of the king's horses put him together, but I was happy that my "fun" Christmas project was at an end.

And that's about when I found out my wife thought it was super-creepy and scary and never wanted this particular Humpty in the first place. Merry Christmas!

Speaking of bad eggs, there's more than a few lurking about in my serial killer trilogy, . No, I'm not talking about the serial killers; they're the good guys! It's complicated. Find out how complicated !