Hello! Marc here. Happy Yorkshire Day. Regular visitors to the site will doubtless be aware that we’re expecting 7 Reasons: The Trailer to be ready very soon. But it isn’t ready yet. I didn’t want to sit about waiting for it to arrive though – as I am reliably informed that the devil will do something with my hands – so I decided to work on something else.
You might remember that a few months ago, in an attempt to encourage ambient advertising, Jon made PDF encoded masks that readers could order via email. They weren’t a great success though. From the moment we offered them, Jon was inundated with so many requests that our server crashed, causing us to receive none of the emails. Either that, or no one ordered one, we’re not sure which.
As I was waiting for the trailer though, I had a think. I realised that I could actually use one of these masks, perhaps profitably, so I decided to make one. I sent Jon an email requesting the mask PDF files and received this prompt response:
I don’t know where they are. Why do you want them? What are you up to, Fearns?
I sent an email back suggesting that they were probably somewhere near his computer and, quite soon thereafter, I received the PDF files. Here is a guide to making a 7 Reasons mask.
Step 1 (For some reason, I seem to be accustomed to numbering things): Print mask onto good quality paper. Find a similar sized piece of cardboard. Assemble tools (scissors, glue, double-sided sticky tape, a craft or Stanley knife and elastic).
Step 2: Discover that your wife has hidden a can of spray-mount in her bureau. Get very excited. Jump up and down. Abandon the double-sided sticky tape and the boring, conventional glue.
Step 3: Spray glue onto everything in the room (including own hand). Clean up mess using J cloth. Get wife to unstick your hand from the J cloth. Receive a withering look. Stick mask to cardboard.
Step 4: Using the scissors, cut the excess material from the mask. Unstick your hand from the mask. Go and wash your hands.
Step 5: Take your Stanley or craft knife and begin to gouge Jon’s eyes out. Wince and feel queasy while you do this. Tell the Jon mask not to look.
Step 6: Return the mask’s wink.
Step 7: Be un-nerved by zombie Jon.
Step 8: Using scissors, make small holes at the side of the mask and feed the elastic through them, tying it off with knots at the front; take special care not to include your little finger in the knot, as it will take an awful lot of shaking and swearing to extricate it.
Step 9: Put on mask. You are now ready to begin your crime spree.
Step 10: Wander into the living room and say, “Hello”. Your wife, once she has finished screaming and when her breathing has normalised will say, “don’t you dare wear that to bed”. Your cat will not say anything, but will exhibit a hitherto unimagined turn of speed as he bolts through the living room door and flees in the general direction of the kitchen. You will eventually find him, some hours later, in the garden hiding behind the compost bin. After many hours you will be able to tempt him out with biscuits, though he will refuse to enter the living room for several days.
So that’s how to wreak domestic havoc by making a mask, in ten simple steps. Next week, Jon demonstrates how to bring an end to Western civilisation by baking a potato. Or the trailer will be ready (we hope).
