That's MISTER Broccoli Rob to you

When I decided to enter my graduate program, I had one goal in mind: somehow get a puppet involved. I'm not going to bore you with the details of my puppet fascination. For that, you're just going to have to go into the March 2010 archives and read a series of five posts about PUPPET CAMP. The NYT said it was "fun and frothy" and my sister said it was "cute and creepy." I said, "Thank you SO much" to the NYT and smacked my sister.

Anygay, one course I took involved creating a website for kids to celebrate and encourage healthy eating and exercise habits. We decided that an educational element was lacking and decided to create a character to "speak" to the kids. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to make a puppet and after lots of sweat, burnt fingers from a glue gun, Broccoli Rob was born.

Over the course of two videos, Broccoli Rob taught kids to make a healthy snack and use a dance party as an excuse to exercise. The snack we made was "Fire Ants on a Log" made with craisins instead of plain old, boring ass raisins. People said, "Wow! That's clever!" and I nod as if was somehow my idea when in actuality I couldn't find the raisins in the supermarket and I was too scared to ask someone where they were.

Shaw's is intimidating.

My classmate provided the perfect high-pitched voice and I had the chance to interact with "him" in the videos. See, I always wanted to be the person interacting with a puppet because those freakin' celebrities on "Sesame Street" make it look so fun. Though, I found it to be an awkward experience because whenever the puppeteer flubbed a line I would hit the puppet out of frustration.

This tells me I should avoid having children around for a while. Or talking pieces of broccoli.

Anyway, BRob was a hit and everyone danced and everyone sang and somewhere a person bought Noxema because a Drew Barrymore commercial told me that happens every 15 seconds or something.

Broccoli Rob took on a life on his own and I began to kind of resent his attention. I found that my friends were more interested in the life of this inanimate thing than with that was happening in my life. Granted, most of my life consists of watching reruns of "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and thinking about getting a haircut, but it's nice to be asked.

Pal: "How is Broccoli Rob doing these days?"

Me: "He's in a closet because he's a puppet but you know, I'm fine, so thanks...."

He did make one more appearance at a friend's birthday party as he helped bring out the cake and sang "Defying Gravity" with everyone (because that's totally normal). Sometimes I catch his eye from the closet while I sit at my desk and do "work" (read: look at YouTube clips of "Zoom") as if he's plotting something. Who said puppets were creepy?