The Great Sand Shark debacle

My son's class is having a "county fair" in conjunction with the class reading project, Charlotte's Web. He's supposed to make some crafts or projects to bring in for the county fair showcase. All the kids have bean plants. We've also made a rustic looking toolbox from scrap wood in the garage, and completed a plastic model of a hot rod car. The model is "Sand Shark" and I actually started it when I was his age, but didn't get very far along on it. My parents kept it tucked away all those years and tonight we put the final decal on. It looked good, and it was a valuable father-son bonding experience.

I put it safely out of the way in the kitchen (our project zone) for the decals to dry and we finished dinner, homework, bath, etc, and he's off to bed.

Later in the evening, I got a little hungry and made a toasted bagel with cream cheese. It was great - just what I needed. I'm polishing off the last bite and I realize that the Sand Shark is melting into the top of the toaster oven! Oh shit! I reach over to pull it off, hoping that it's just a little out of round on the wheels, but no such luck. It pulls like taffy and all of a sudden I have bits of the freshly made model in my hand - half an engine with floppy exhaust headers and a suspension that looks like a pretzel made from Silly Putty. The rest of it is stuck to the top of the toaster oven and slowly melting into oblivion.

Looks like the "safe place" wasn't.

I ended up scraping the remainder of the wheels off the oven with a razor blade and then polishing with a scouring pad to get the remnants off. There's no way to fix the Sand Shark or even to pass it off as a modern art interpretation. It's ruined and in multiple, warped, pieces.

The hard part will be apologizing in the morning. I think a trip to the store to purchase a replacement will help matters along. I suppose if I felt truly remorseful I could replace the model off E-bay for $29.99 plus $8.99 shipping and handling.