Some of you may recall my account of the Cub’s efforts to protect Casa Piper a couple of years ago: Piper Cub defends us from vampires by laying down a strategic garlic perimeter. His thoughts have recently returned to issues of domestic security.
On March 16 (note date) I came home and immediately noticed an aroma in the air when I came into the house. Familiar, not unpleasant; after a few moments, I placed it: shaving cream.
My thoughts immediately turned to the Cub. He has a fascination with pressurised tins and tubes. Whipped cream is a favourite. Shaving cream had not previously attracted his attention, but it would be a natural progression.
I went up the stairs to his room. The pleasant aloe scent grew stronger. I turned the corner at the half-landing, and there it was, spread out on several of the stairs: thick layers of shaving cream. There were some attractive little blobs of shaving cream on the walls, but clearly the stairs were the main area of attention.
I managed to jump over the affected areas and went to the Cub’s room. The door was shut. I put my hand on the doorknob and the combination of coolness and stickiness immediately alerted me to another area that had received the shaving cream treatment. (Later, I found that several other doorknobs around the house had been similarly treated. The Cub is thorough.)
The Cub was iPadding on his bed, surrounded by cats, rather like Dr Claw.
“Cub”, I said, “I’ve noticed that there’s been a bit of shaving cream strewn about. Any idea why?”
“Security, Dad,” he replied curtly, in a clear indication that this was a “need-to-know” operation and I was in the “no-need” category.
“Well, we will need to get it tidied up,” I replied.
That got his attention. He looked up at me with pleading eyes. “Not until tomorrow!”
I decided to humour him, as he clearly had a deep-laid stratagem in operation. I asked Mrs Piper about it later on, and she just said, “He’s got some plan in his head. When I found all the shaving cream, he wouldn’t tell me why, but he really wanted me to leave it alone.”
The next morning, the Cub and I tidied it up. It had dried up in the interval and he seemed a bit dissatisfied, but he was still in the “Chief Security Officer” mode, so I didn’t press him.
That night, as I was reading to him at bedtime, I returned to the subject. “So Cub, the shaving cream?”
He sighed. “It didn’t work the way I planned.”
“And how was it to work?” I inquired, curious.
“Well, there’s the leprechaun who puts money in my shoes on St Patrick’s Day.* I really wanted to see what he looked like. So I thought that if I put down lots and lots of shaving cream on the stairs, it would be really sticky and trap the leprechaun when he came up the stairs. Even if it didn’t trap him, I’d be able to see his foot prints and figure out how big he was. But I put it on too early, and it got dry and hard, and he must have been able to sneak through. Dang it!”
“Interesting plan,” I said. “But there’s always next year.”
“Yessss,” he said, in a tone of voice that did not bode well for sneaky leprechauns next year.
- Aside: Custom in the Piper household: Leprechauns are cobblers, so on St. Patrick’s Day, the Cub finds coins in his shoes before he goes to school, brought by the leprechauns.