We have to convene about the Squares.

Just today came news of a plan to award the R rating to any movie with "depictions that glamorize smoking."

Anti-Soviet behavior, I'm sure, will be next.

A couple of weeks ago, some office Square or other hoisted a black flag of sorts in a stairwell. A nasty-gram warning everybody not to smoke in there. Threats of fines and imprisonment. It wasn't official, just a Square who can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke.

I've smelled it, too. But nobody's smoking in the stairwell. You can't see any smoke, for one thing. Further, there are no ashes on the floor. (It is impossible to burn a cigarette—especially in a windless area such as a stairwell—without leaving ashes behind.) And from my building-guard training, I know the difference between fresh smoke and the kind that's been pumped through a ventilation system. This is stale smoke, hours old, from another room. Probably a quirk in the HVAC system is pushing it from a smoking break-room into the stairwell.

But that's not good enough for Vigilante Square. Dallas has trained him that even the faintest trace of tobacco smoke is cause for a National Guard callup. Reserves, even.

Somebody, somewhere might be enjoying himself, and must be punished.

i know this is a lousy picture. But did you ever try to photograph ducks in your front yard at sunset?

They will not face you, for one thing. Once they detect a mobile human, they turn away and begin that halting, wary duck-escape walk just to show they're onto you.

So a face-on shot would prove impossible. Or a sharp still of any kind, because the twilight dictated long exposure.

What, I suppose you've got ducks in your suburban yard?

Wolf Dog and I ran into them later on our walk. They were a couple of feet off the sidewalk, and they waited until we got fairly close to make their escape ... flying in a straight line in the same direction we were walking. So we encountered them again three minutes later, whereupon they naturally assumed we were stalking them. Brainless animals, these ducks.

finally, although it's going to cast me as Art Linkletter (was he born 78 years old?), I have to relay how Squinx' word power continues to dazzle me. This afternoon she took great pride in telling me she could buckle her own carseat belt.

These things are stiff, designed for adult use, with a plastic spring-clip that can pinch ferociously anyone who tries to work it with any sort of trepidation. You have to show it who's boss.

So, I sat watching as Squinx put all her strength into successfully buckling the plastic snap, then got one of the metal buckles but couldn't quite make the other one drop into place.

"This one's not paying attention," she said.

it occurred to me as I was falling asleep: Office-building rules prohibit tacking up notices with cellophane tape.

That's exactly how those stairwell nasty-grams were posted. I bet we can get fingerprint evidence on our Square.

Would going after him make me a Square, squared?

Posted by: Michael Rittenhouse at 07:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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