Image by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz from Pixabay
When you let your living room be used as the family community room, sometimes you just have to live with the consequences…
It is amazing what a daughter recovering from a nervous breakdown and four of her little nephews and nieces can do with ten pounds of modeling clay.
Vertran, eight years old, was innocent. He had just brought over the ten pounds of modeling clay because he had just learned the colloquial meaning of pigeon hole, and had heard his mother saying that there was always somebody who wanted to put people into pigeon holes so they didn't reach their potential. He had seen his aunt Melissa always working in wood, and so wanted to “rescue her” from being pigeon-holed as just somebody who worked with wood.
Aunt Melissa, under normal circumstances, would have been a good supervisor for Vertran and his younger siblings, but she was recovering from a complete breakdown, and could really only focus on one thing at a time.
Vertran's toddling younger siblings – the three Baby Steps of the Stepforth family – had just followed him across the quiet street, and they liked clay as much as anyone else. Their mother had crossed with them, of course, but, she too failed to realize how much Melissa could and could not do, and knew that there were other adults at home. In fact, she greeted her father-in-law on the porch: Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr., who kissed his youngest grandbabies, put them down, and meant to follow them inside … but then got a phone call from one of Melissa's children.
Mr. Stepforth was serving as custodian of his daughter Melissa while she recovered, and thus also managing all her affairs, including her children's “Escape From New York” while the pandemic gained strength there. A lot of details to manage when school was already out there, the oldest child was only 21 and trying to hold things down for his siblings, and Covid-19 crept closer and closer.
Mrs. Velma Stepforth, technically still the ex-wife-but-not-for-long of Mr. Thomas Stepforth was out that day house-hunting for her grandchildren through Melissa … they would have to quarantine for 14 days, and so they needed a house fully furnished for their arrival. Mr. Stepforth just wanted to buy a house in cash outright, and he knew he could trust Mrs. Stepforth to find just the thing … but he had forgotten that she wasn't inside with Melissa, but out house-hunting.
Mr. Stepforth had meant to go inside … but his eldest granddaughter was crying and crying … it was a lot … her college dreams had been shattered, her mom had “lost her mind and doesn't even remember me!” and her favorite teacher had just died of Covid-19. So he stayed on the porch an hour, just getting her calmed down and focused on the move to Tinyville, and then, not recognizing the passage of time, went inside.
The shock of how much time had passed hit Mr. Stepforth like a ton of clay … everywhere.
Melissa and Vertran were oblivious to all of this; she was just making models of Vertran in various poses and setting them to the side, and at the moment, Vertran was doing his muscle-man flex with his shirt off, showing off those little eight-year-old muscles while his aunt laughed and tried to capture every detail.
While they were laughing away, so were the Baby Steps, who had crept up and grabbed every bit of clay Melissa didn't have in front of her so they could play with it … all over the floor, the furniture, the walls, and themselves.
Mr. Stepforth was instantly furious, and then calmed himself down. Leaving children and child-like people unsupervised … that was totally his fault. Oh well … he just took out his phone and started capturing the memories before getting everybody involved in the clean-up, including him giving the Baby Steps a perfectly hilarious bath.
“This is what happens,” he said to his son Major Stepforth as they laughed until they cried the next day, “when Stepforths decide not to be pigeon-holed.”
“Dad, look – I didn't even know that you could do that much with just ten pounds of clay!”
“I just thank God Vertran doesn't have more muscles than he does, and couldn't carry 15 pounds across the street!”