Little inventor.

My nights are quiet, since Neighbor Kid goes to bed at 8:30, but oh the mornings. Today, he announced that a raccoon had gotten into my garbage. Indeed it had, and made a mess. Maybe, possibly, it was because there was a dead bird in there? Ugh. So we rebagged everything (no dead bird to be found). I was going to come back in, but he seemed ready for more, so after we washed our hands, I asked him if he could help me fix my other garbage can, the one with a top to keep raccoons out. The wheels had popped out, and I couldn't get them back in. This was fine when there was snow out, since I could just wedge it in a snowbank. But since spring, it just falls over. So he requested some duct tape and did his junior engineering thing. Like last week, when he wanted a tennis ball and some yarn so he could make a cat toy, and I said that wouldn't work, and he came back the next day with the tennis ball, tiny holes drilled in it, attached to a fishing pole. Not that the cats loved it even after all his work.

And so I'm working on a manuscript today, and I told him that after the garbage can adventure, but he just came to the door again anyway. He wanted to know when Cosmo last had his rabies shot. He's all up to date, I told him, and he said good. I thought he was telling me Cos got bit by that raccoon or something, and jumped up to find out. Turns out the cat bit the Neighbor Kid. Oh. And he showed me, although I would actually call the wound a scratch. Yup, you're good, I told him. No rabies for you. But maybe the cats wouldn't be so fussy if he'd stop whacking them with a tennis ball on a string.

Comments

[Betty]

like Pavlov's dog, after a few more bites/scratches I think even neighbor boy will figure out the cats don't like him.

[Peter]

Maybe you should start whaking him with a tennis ball. Even better, let me come over and I'll play that cruel game of catch that the big kids used to play with Mike Lucas (Woodward Elementary special kid 1977). You know... the one where you keep telling him to go deep and then deeper and when you hear him yell "throw it!" faintly from 4 blocks away, then just take the ball and go back inside.