Beauty is in the Eye of the Board-Holder

At times, The Pony can be a bit headstrong. He takes the bit in his teeth, and runs with it, despite Val trying to rein him in.

A couple weeks ago, I asked him to help me in the classroom. It is science fair season, and my pupils presented projects as they do every year at this time. I keep a stack of old projects on top of the storage cabinets. Display boards that were no longer wanted, which previous pupils gave me permission to use as examples. It gets the new class fired up to see good boards and not-so-good boards, planning on how theirs will be better.

With four classes bringing in boards, I needed to make room around the walls. The old ones had to go back up on top of the cabinets.

"Pony. Get those boards and put them back before we leave today."

"I'll do it now. All of these?"

"Uh huh. You'll need to stack them on the desks by the cabinet, and stand on a chair to put them back." (The stack still on top was pretty tall.) "I can come hand you a few at a time so you don't have to climb up and down."

"No, no. You don't need to get up. I've got this."

The Pony grabbed the used boards in a bundle. He left them as they had been scattered. Some big and cardboard. Some small and foam. Some big and foam. Some small and cardboard. You would think a now-legal-adult child who won the Physics 1st place medal at the W.Y.S.E. sectionals on Friday would understand that this kind of stack is unstable.

"Why don't you sort those out by size?"

"No. I got this."

The Pony carried the whole stack, over a dozen boards, to the cabinet. Rather than set them down on top of the desks and put a chair in place, he tilted that unstable stack up over his head, propped the end of one board on top (almost) of the cabinet stack, and shoved.

Science display boards cascaded down onto The Pony's head like computer-game playing cards when you win Windows Solitaire.

"On second thought, maybe I should use a chair."

"Are you okay? Did that hurt your large brain? That you sometimes don't bother to use?"

"I'm fine. My brain case and my face. My two best features."

You'd think he'd go to greater lengths to protect them.