One Saturday morning a friend named Linda arrived at our home and she and Alice opened a big box that proudly proclaimed NOT JUST A ROCK. They were pleased to discover that there were instructions on the top of the popcorn and quickly began digging for things that were buried in it. Alice found the package with the pump and, as she opened it, a small black piece feel out and into the popcorn and quickly disappeared from view. Linda began tossing the popcorn in the hope of finding it, but to no avail. Alice then dumped all the popcorn onto the floor. She was laughing though since this seems to be part of a tradition that was established when our first rock moved in. They found the black piece, put the popcorn back in the box, and resumed assembly.

The instructions said to rinse the gravel to eliminate dust. This seemed like an excellent idea to Alice since the first rock covered the apartment with fine dust during assembly. While Alice rinsed, Linda tried to figure out the pump. The instructions didn't seem to help a lot here (since they seemed to discuss a different model of pump <laughing everyone>) and Linda kept insisting that there must be a piece missing. However Alice assured her there wasn't so Linda persevered. She had the rock upside down and was trying to connect the pump, which promptly feel out as soon as she turned it right side up. The stuffies who were observing this process could not help laughing but, fortunately, by this time the pump was in and water was flowing so Alice didn't notice our chuckling.

Linda and Alice moved the rock to its intended home and noticed that the water was flowing fast--very fast--sprinkling everything in its immediate vicinity. They chose to ignore this and begin decorating the rock. It looked very beautiful, but the rock continued watering the rug and the table. They also noticed that, in spite of the rinsing, there was dust everywhere--not the fine dust--but still rather pervasive and Alice might have been a bit miffed if the rock had not continued its enthusiastic flow. They decided more moss would solve the problem so Alice went off to procure same while Linda went home.

Alice returned with LOTS OF MOSS and put it around the waterfall which responded by watering with extra vigor. This did not seem to please Alice who decided that reducing the speed of the flow might help. It did. It caused the waterfall to cease falling. <picture small animals giggling uncontrollably>This seemed to please Alice even less who, while trying to remedy this, knocked the little men, the crystals, the extra rocks and everything else out of the bowl and onto the floor. <picture small animals hiding under the covers trying to disguise hysterics> By this time, our Alice had started to turn a rather strange shade of red and moved the rock and bowl to the kitchen and tried to remedy the problem--again and again!!! She had now attained a really imperfect shade of magenta and we were relieved when, after taking out a bunch of the water before reassembling the rock for the fifth or sixth time, the water began flowing. Fortunately she had remembered to reduce the rate of flow so no more assembly seemed necessary.

She moved the rock back to the table, redid the decorating and noticed that the sprinkling continued a bit--she added even more moss and, at least at the moment, it seemed possible that the rug may not become waterlogged. <giggling animals> Since all appeared to be well, it seemed only prudent for us to ask her if she planned to remain the magenta color and to suggest that she abandon it since it did not match her wardrobe. Don't you think that was a caring thing for us to do??? We cannot imagine why Alice reacted so badly!!!

Sunday morning, the first thing Alice did when she got up was check the rock. Apparently it has a strong desire to share and, since the rug did not appear to need water, it decided that the table might. <giggling animals> Alice did not appear to share its feeling. It seems that no wonder what the rock does, Alice is not happy. We were not pleased to note that the strange color was returning to her face as she added water and tried to figure out what was splashing. It was pretty funny to watch her, but we were very careful not to let her hear us laughing. Eventually she decided to try to lift up one of the rocks and cover it with a bit more moss and this seems to have pretty much stopped the problem. We certainly hope so since working with the rock does not appear to be therapeutic for our Alice!