Small: Toy Raptor

My Mother-in-Law Heidi has this thing for Noah’s Ark. She has at least three different models displayed through out the house. Her favorite Ark sits atop the entertainment center. It’s a large handmade wooden model that’s about 2feet long. There is a walkway leading up to the bridge of the Ark that hand-carved, wooden animals are walking up in pairs. For a long time, when Tabitha and I were dating I would go over and move her animals around putting monkeys with lions and giraffes with hippos and whatnot. Sometimes she’d notice, others she’d be completely oblivious. When she did though, she would get mad and yell at me for it-- and if you knew how much I like to mess with my mother-in-law, then you’d know that I got a huge kick out of it. Once, when walking through Target, Tabitha and I came across these wonderful hand painted toys buy a German company called Schleich (they still make Smurf toys…Awesome). Anyway, they make a full line of dinosaurs that happen to be the right size for this Noah’s Ark set …do you see where I’m going with this? We bought this Raptor and put it up with the other animals, right on top of the walkway next to Noah, looking like it was about to pounce. We waited in excitement for Heidi to notice. Days, then weeks went by…nothing. Finally, when we were visiting a few weeks later, she was dusting the Ark right in front of us and we thought, “This is it, she’s going to notice, flip out and it’ll be great!” . . . Nothing! She dusted right over it! Tabitha, her father and I were all flabbergasted! When we finally pointed it out to her she was aghast and embarrassed at her obliviousness which made it all the funnier. We all laughed until we cried. The Raptor has been stalking that man ever since.