Both Varmint and Critter were allowed to invite a friend to the beach this summer. Varmint and her friend, Megan, both tweenie-boppers, have begun the girly-girl thing. They play sweetly on the beach, in their room in Pop-pop’s Beach Cottage, or walk to town together to buy important items like sunglasses or flip-flops.
Critter and his friend, Richard, however, are much more productive with their time. These are boys on the verge of man-hood, folks. They can’t afford to sit idly with unpurposeful play. Like the Spartans who trained for war from infancy, these boys are training for life. When playing on the beach, they build protective bulkheads out of sand. When in town, they are in reconnaissance mode, searching for the perfect frozen custard (It’s Kohr Brothers, in case you’re wondering.) And when in their room at Pop-pop’s cottage, they engineer.
There are bunk beds in that room. Every boy’s dream for the foundation of a fort.
The seeds of structural engineering, the infancy of architecture, all begin here, friends. Do not doubt it.
And they are professionals. They don’t mess with an amature’s shores, struts, or braces. They don’t need rakers, cables, or rebar. They thumb their noses at post-tensioned tendons.
No Sirree. They don’t need those things at all.
Why?
They have masking tape from the kitchen drawer.
An entire roll that has to be at least 20 years old.
But it works. It works well. Especially when you use all of it.
I promise you they built a masterpiece. Complete with roof. Composed primarily of fleece blankets, cowboy sheets, an empty TV box and bunk bed frames.
impenetrable for the most part; they take no chances. You never know when the teenie-bopper girls might want to crash in.
So they take the proper precautions.
Painstakingly printed and spelled correctly.
But just in case that doesn’t stop the girls, they have other fail safes.
I won’t expose their booby traps, but I will tell you that the girls would do well to mind their own beeswax.
Besides, I wasn’t allowed to take any further pictures.
I don’t have the proper clearance, apparently.
Mama Boe 