Every once in a while I make my own playdough. I’ve got a great recipe that guarantees hours of fun, play, stress therapy and scraping colourful leftovers from your walls and floors. All the playdough that I’ve made have had quite eventful lives, but the last batch certainly takes the cake!

I had made an extra large portion because Julian wanted to make a little animation movie with it and I wanted to use it in my English class for a vocabulary activity. It’s sort of a combination of Sherades, Pictionary and Rapidough. You get a word, draw it, act it out or clay it and the other part of the class has to guess it. I’m a new teacher in this school and let’s just say that I’m not always that well prepared when it comes to what to expect behavior wise. I mean, would you ever expect an 18-year-old to be naughty? I’m used to having very obedient students. The ones in Angola almost kissed the floor I walked on, would never, ever be rude and diligently kept on working when I once fell asleep during class.

So back to the lesson, I explained the game and we started. As soon as it was somebody’s turn to clay, I walked over to his table, gave it to him and let him do his word. “Oh, this clay just feels great!”, he said. Always having thought this student might have concentration problem, I offered him to keep a bit so that he could use it as a stress ball kind of thing. Very dumb! By the time it was the third person’s turn to clay, there was hardly any left and my students were starting to prove themselves to be quite talented sculptors. Specialized in fertility gods and goddesses….

So I asked the playdough back. Thinking I had collected it all, something hit me in the back. And again. The students started throwing the playdough at each other, yelling, laughing, well, you sort of get the idea… So I took it back again and put it in front of the class on my desk. We quit the game and as a bit of a revenge I let them do a really hard, boring exercise.

One guy had to go to the bathroom. “That’s fine, but if you’re gone for longer then 5 minutes you’re not allowed in anymore”, I said. You see, sometimes they stay away so long and come back smelling like a joint. He was back in a wink of the eye, I complimented him on it and continued the lesson. Well, guess what: He had taken the batch of playdough back to his seat and the whole throwing, catching, yelling game started over again! Never have I been more relieved to be done with a class!

Anyway, I changed my strategy and in the other classes the game just worked out fine. One of the students has a 3-year-old and she told me that she was going to The States with the kid and dreading the flight. Being an expert on flying with little ones, I suggested her to take the batch of playdough. Sure that that would keep him busy for a while.

Two weeks later she was back. The boy had indeed played for hours and as always, playdough had been a lifesaver on a transcontinental flight. But then, at JFK, she was stopped by the customs, taken into a little office and interrogated about the pink stuff! They asked her to eat it, tell everything about the contents, where she had gotten it from, etc. etc. An hour later, just in time to catch her next flight, she was allowed to go, but of course leave the possible dangerous explosive/drug behind.

I like to fantasize about what happened to the playdough next. Perhaps the custom officer took it home and gave it to his kids. Or perhaps they are using it for stress release therapy themselves! Whoever has got it now, they will never know that it was made in my kitchen in Ridderkerk, used for a home made animation movie, thrown with, shaped into very improper forms, thrown with a bit more and played with by a little Dutch kid on the plane. What an exciting idea!