spool holder with two stage straightener 1600x1200

My simple afternoon hack of a copper wire straightener got more attention - both online and off - than I had expected. One of these came as a fun sidetrack to my Sparklecon talk about my KISS Tindie wire sculptures. As part of the background on my wire form project, I mentioned creating this holder. It kicked off a few questions, which I had answered, but I had the most fun with "Does it have a name?"

I gave the actual answer first, which was that I had only been calling it a very straightforward "wire spool holder with straightener" but I followed it up with an off-the-cuff joke "Or did you mean a name like Felicia?" I think I saw a smile by the person asking the question (hard to tell, he had a beard) and I also got a few laughs out of the audience which is great. I had intended to leave it at that, but as I was returning to my presentation another joke occurred to me: "Felicia will set you straight."

Since my script was already derailed, I saw no reason to run with it: "Is there a fictional character who is a disciplinarian? That might be fitting." and opened it up to the audience for suggestions. We got "Mary Poppins" which isn't bad, but things went downhill from there. The fact is: the disciplinarian in a story is almost always a killjoy obstacle in our hero's journey. Or worse, one of the villains, as in the suggestion of "Delores Umbridge" given by a woman wearing a Harry Potter shirt. My reaction was immediate: "No." But two seconds later I remembered to make it a tad more positive: "Thank you, she is indeed a disciplinarian, but no." Hopefully she doesn't feel like I bit her head off.

After the talk, there were additional suggestions interpreting my second joke "Felicia will set you straight" in the sense of personal relationship preferences. This went down a path of politically conservative zealots who believe it is their public duty to dictate what people do in private. This direction of thinking never even occurred to me when I threw out the joke on a whim.

I think I'll leave it at Mary Poppins.