Not too long ago, on a lazy summer morning, Jeremy excitedly summoned me into the kitchen to introduce me to "the perfect slice of toast."
No piece of toast, now or ever, could compete with this slice for its iconic and almost cartoon-like shape, its exemplary toastedness, its archetypal color and shading. If someone were to make a cartoon toast creature, this slice would be an ideal model to base it upon. You could easily imagine it sprouting arms and legs, grabbing a microphone, and beginning to croon a tune about breakfast nutrition for morning television.
"All it needs is a pair of googly eyes," Jeremy said.
"You got it," I said, heading downstairs.
"Wait..." He called after me, "You actually have GOOGLY EYES on hand?"
"For just such an emergency as this," I said, returning with a baggie of googly eyes in varying sizes.
"You're kidding," he said.
"What kind of a crafter would I be if I didn't have access to googly eyes when I needed them?"
And of course I pulled out the camera for an impromptu photo shoot.
"I think he looks kinda suspicious," Jeremy said.
"Nah, he's just shy," I replied.
But we both agreed that he is definitely male. Then Jeremy devoured him. (Sans the eyes.)
Incidentally, for the first time ever, I connected the term "googly eyes" to the popular search engine "Google." It makes sense! Both "Google" and "googly eyes" have to do with eyes—perhaps the act of looking or searching. They're both FUN. They share five of their six letters.
Of course, Google claims that the word is based upon "Googol," a mathematical term that means a 1 followed by 100 zeros. But I have to believe that someone at Google made the "googly eyes" connection early on, but it didn't sound quite sophisticated enough, so it was never included in the official story.
I just LOVE this definition of "googly eyes," found on Wikipedia:
"Googly eyes or wiggly eyes are large, bulging or rolling craft findings used to imitate eyes. The eyes traditionally are composed of a clear, hard-plastic shell, with a smaller, black plastic disk trapped within. The inner black disk is allowed to move freely within the larger clear plastic shell, which makes the eyes appear to move. Googly eyes are mainly involved in arts and crafts and are sometimes glued to inanimate objects for the purposes of portraying personification and humour."
Hilarious, right? Such a sober, academic, and accurate tone used to describe something as silly and inane as googly eyes.
