Sometimes, you just WANNA be TICKED OFF!

There's this crazy phenomenon out there, you know the one ... ticked off birds sling-shotting themselves at green pigs.  The pigs snicker when the birds miss, the birds celebrate when they connect.  All in fun.  But, addictive.  Waaaaay back when my son was four years old (okay, he's seven now, so not that long ago!) he was mesmerized, I mean really, there is a strategy to knocking over the contraptions and hitting all the targets in as few slingshots as possible, right?  It was a puzzle to solve, so I didn't mind his occasional foray into the games...but then, one game led to another, Rio, Seasons, Space...it had taken over the world in the device market.  Thankfully, the games are only $1/each and were often good incentive in reminding him about certain tasks to complete FIRST!  "Remember, you can save your pennies to buy it yourself or, sure you can set the table or shovel the laneway!" 

Well, as time went on, my apprentice had to have everything related to this game... t-shirts, bracelets, calendars, I even made his dream loft bed, but it was the ticked off stuffies hanging from it that he loved most! ..(thanks SPEAK!).  So, what do you give a guy that probably has everything to do with the one thing he REALLY loves? 

I made him a Ticked Off lunch, that's what.! 

Ha Ha.  He enjoyed that one, but then I got to thinking about his birthday.  So I started my search, while there was still snow on the ground, for something Ticked Off.  In fact, my original plan was to get him a themed Bicycle Helmet cover from Tail Wags.  I had seen her products on the CBC show - Dragons Den - and there were many great choices.  So off to peruse her site I did, again.  But this time, there it was, a new item, the TICKED OFF Bird...my heart leapt.  A perfect present for my boy.  So I ordered, right away, thinking that it would take weeks and weeks to arrive, and I didn't want it to be late for his birthday.  Well, Miss Karen is super-speedy .. and to my pleasant surprise, it arrived four days later.  This was a good thing and a bad thing, all rolled into one.  First off, the packaging and professionalism was awesome.  Timely, neat, well protected, the workwomanship, and handy information included, I was impressed.  The second part, is the bad part.  I had to sit on this surprise for THREE MONTHS!!  Impossible, you say?  Well, I did it ... it wasn't easy, but I hid it, ignored it and tried not to peek in on it (after a test fit on his helmet, of course). 

Skip ahead to the birthday, and the look on his face when he ripped it open was priceless...he wore it the entire day, even while eating the birthday cake. 


Now, it was fun to surprise him with another of his favorite characters, but the best part is that he adores wearing this helmet.  He didn't have any issues wearing a helmet before, but now he thinks he's EXTRA cool, and his friends are always curious about it.  He even brought it into school for his grade one show and tell.  Unfortunately, that day, an older kid on his school bus tried to take it from him (that's how cool it is, I suppose) and in the struggle, broke the strap on his helmet. 



There were some tears over that incident, but, the strap is fixed and back in working and chirping order.

So Thanks Tail-Wags, for a super cool product. 
Its always good to see this kind of inventiveness from a Small Canadian Business.

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