I was suddenly reminded of an entry I was thinking of making but never did.

I went to Michael’s the other day for a… project… (which I took a picture of but haven’t put online yet, and I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Some of you have seen it) and I saw something that made me a bit sick to my stomach. They sell self-contained, customizable mission kits now.

For those of you who didn’t go to public school in California, every student in the fifth grade (I think it’s fifth) has to make a model of one of the missions. I made mine out of sugar cubes and glue, other people used cardboard. Now all the kid has to do is buy one of these kits (they have different kits for different missions, of course), and they just assemble it with glue or whatever.

This doesn’t seem fair.

The other thing is, right next to Michael’s is the new Popeye’s that finally opened up near my house. The odd thing is that it shares a storefront with and has a connecting door to a pearl tea shop. Only in California can you buy a po’boy at the same place as boba.

The third thing that was mentally attached to this stuff was, on the way back from Michael’s I saw a sign for a real estate agent whose very appropriate last name was “Villanueva.”

5 Replies to “”

  1. I made my mission out of a shoebox and coated the outside with a flour and water solution (I think) to give it an adobe/plaster look… it came out pink or something. I forget.

  2. I think I did mine in 4th grade outta cardboard. It wasn’t pretty. We also took a field trip to a mission back then.

    Those mission kits have been around for some years now.

  3. My missions were made of styrofoam. Since I found out various methods of coloring styrofoam don’t really work well, my missions generally turned out white (except the one made out of lots and LOTS of clay and I only made like one wall along one side). I could never imagine eating enough popsicles to have enough sticks and I could never find those so-called “boxes of popsicle sticks” until years later when it no longer mattered.

    Yeah, the mission kits have been around a while.. I’ve actually pondered going back and making a dinosaur — a la that How to Make Your Own Dinosaur book — now that I’ve seen actual styrofoam eggs at michael’s all this time.

  4. The heck? I’ve never heard of this before. We visited a mission in elementary school, but I’m pretty sure I never built a model of one.

    Hrm.. I usually did most of my projects back then too.

    1. I’m in the same boat as you. I do not remember building or visiting a mission, and I was not a slacker back then. I do remember building a replica of a house in adobe, but it wasn’t a mission.

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