Engineering

Yesterday the Verbalist, Muralist, the Screecher and I were shopping and picked up MouseTrap, the boardgame where you build a Rube Goldberg machine to trap other people's game pieces. It won the immediate approbation of the Verbalist, whom you might recall drew up plans for trapping Santa Claus last Christmas.

The Muralist was more concerned with collecting pieces of cheese than construction of the trap, but she was suitably wary when it was completed. The Verbalist could hardly keep from running the partially completed contraption as we hopped along the board. His hand kept sneaking out to turn the gear crank.

Game one ended when I captured both Verbalist and Muralist pieces in one go. Game two ended after the Verbalist captured me and the Muralist captured him in turn. He had a brief gloating session before, unwary, his sister turned the crank on him.

He has decided to build a full size sister trap and is drawing up plans.