Erin built model boats out of toothpicks. She played drums in a band called Heavy Mental. No one knew what her day job was, not even her. It had become so boring she stopped paying attention.
Her last project, a 1/16 scale model of the USS Constitution, had been part of a major museum exhibit. It had to be built in sections that would be able to fit through her apartment door. When assembled it was 19 feet long. Erin had not fully appreciated the public love for this ship known as “Old Ironsides.” She had photographs with it, wearing a sailor outfit. Suddenly she had burst onto the toothpick boat-making scene.
Erin started by accident. On a slow Sunday, she dropped a box of toothpicks and thought she would have to throw them out. Her brain told her she should apply a glue gun. She wasn’t sure what she was making until it turned out to be a row boat. From there it wasn’t hard to graduate to sail boats. Online, she not only found pictures of actual boats, but a whole community of people devoted to tooth-picking arts. Perhaps she continued as a joke she shared with her bandmates. But they became a little ticked when she missed their monthly gig to work on “a particularly difficult tugboat.”
Success is not without challenges. As a follow up, Erin struggled to top herself. She settled on U.S. Arizona. But right now it looked like it had already been bombed by the Japanese.
