Runny Knows

In which our Hero gently repositions the Oven while the Fridge giggles and coos

It’s the same couch and the same kitchen, but Oven has been running back and forth between the two to stare in wonder like there’s a million dollar prize at stake if he can just figure out the difference. In his mother’s lap, as she sits on the floor, his brother is also alternating between ferociously gumming a plastic cup that won’t do him the courtesy of fitting entirely into his mouth, and chuckling as Oven rips through his field of vision. When Fridge also finds his legs, these two are going to be trouble of a sort we haven’t seen in a while, and I confess, I’m looking forward to it.

I love the thunder as Oven runs by. I love the consuming urgency and the way he doesn’t get bored as the laps repeat. He stays focused on running and stopping, and I stay focused on watching him go. Not that it’s novel or anything, but it’s still fascinating. Why does he pause at the entrance to the kitchen. What does he look at. Is someone making faces at him there or is he just watching. How does he decide it’s time to do the return lap?

The other end of his loop is a sofa with a couple of his great-uncles chatting over drinks. And they do make faces or just wave, and Oven watches them for a little while, about as long as he stared into the kitchen, and then thump-thump-thump and he’s off towards the kitchen. One of his laps curves a bit as he slows to watch me load a chip with some dip, but he shakes his head once when I offer and continues to his destiny-of-the-moment.

Every time he sweeps towards the couch, his track doglegs a little to the right, around the coffee table, with it’s honey coloured corner that makes me tense every time I watch him go by it. And after a few laps, I can’t take it anymore, and push the table against the sofa. It’s not as cool as the little channel he was running in, but it gives him a straight line to the couch.

Oven isn’t impressed by the change. He’s much more impressed by the noise the table made when I moved it and is studying it to see where the sound came from. For a while. Until the siren call of the sofa draws him on and he finishes his lap.

He wasn’t impressed, but still, he clearly registered the change. Because the next trip back from the kitchen, the slight psychological push to the left by the coffee table reveals that the hallway continues on to the front door, and the world’s fastest Oven transcends his couch-bound world in an exultant sprint that ends with his hands slapping against the door in triumph.