On Silos and Shiners

A industrial cardboard tube destined to be turned into a silo.  I see work assignment.  They see fun...because what isn't fun about being inside a tube?

We've just collected it from my office so I can work on it at home. "Can we go in it, Daddy, please?" Zander's bouncing on the front stoop of the church.
"One time," Scott says, lowering it over Zander's head, wrapping him up like a carpet.  He can't see over the top.
Giggles spill over the lip.
"Me, me, me!" Liam chants like he's in line for a ride at Centreville.
Off of Zander, onto Liam.
"Cool!"
Noa's little hand shoots into the air.  "My tuwrn!  My tuwrn!"
Off of Liam, onto Noa.
Giggles.

Twenty-five minutes later.  Unloading in the hall.  Why should it surprise me that said tube has somehow ended up upon the eldest once again?  Why should it surprise me that sweet Liam would think it funny to rock said tube?  And why should it surprise me that rocking by Liam is no gentle lullaby?  It is, instead, a mighty, rip-roaring tsunami, a Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down kind of rocking, a I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down kind of rocking.  So, like a felled tree, screaming his TIMBER!, Zander falls, arms pinned against self-preservation, head slamming against wall, landing in a tubular prison of cardboard and howling pain, while lumberjack Liam sheepishly tucks his axe of a hand behind his back and paints his face in his most innocent but I never meant him any harm look, while big brother panics against his confinement.

Bruised, battered and slow to calm, Zander ices his head with a Lightning McQueen cold pack and argues that "of course he meant to do it.  He always means to do it!"

Liam says sorry.  Only because he has to.  Only because if he doesn't he might not get to play video games.

And when normalcy returns, when the pulsing has slowed and the swelling has lessened, when he's ready to participate again he joins me in the building of the silo (needed to measure funds for our fall global project for famine relief).

Because nothing can take your mind off your war wounds more than sinking your hands into a bowl of ooey, gooey flour/water paste.