Tabula Rasa

There is a knock at the door. I fully expected a bunch of boys, wanting swords, daggers, maces, axes, and perhaps Kalashnikovs -- all in a day's work for the Chalupy Mideval Arms Emporium. But No. Three girls. Batting their eyelashes with an expertise that would make Scarlett O'Hara green with envy, they want to make a table. They have a clubhouse, you see. Their treehouse collapsed, but they have either reconstituted it or cobbled up a substitute. Or their doting parents have; I wot not. Anyway, they need a table for their clubhouse.

Well, all of these ladies have Irresistible as a middle name, so we set to work. My daughter recently replaced her dining room table. I hauled off the pieces. So it was a matter of sawing a full-size dining room table to size and attaching the legs from the defunct table. The Ryoba saw made reasonably short work of the sawing, and pretty soon we had something resembling a table.We used screws -- and a power driver -- to attach the legs to the table. Although I hate power tools, there are times when instant gratification overrides all other considerations. At left, Irina; at right, Neoneela, at center is Irina's niece. I am ashamed to say I have forgotten her name. You can see what I mean by Irresistible, can you not?

After the table was complete, they wanted to spray-paint it. Not what I would do. But one remembers that instant gratification is the name of the game. The Chalupy paint stores were ransacked for suitable paint. Pretty soon we had a go on painting:

Out of all the chromatic possibilities, they settled for black. Amazingly, they did not paint their Sunday dresses, nor each other! Nor, for that matter, me. We let the stuff dry, and I sprayed some urethane varnish on the top.

There are far worse things to do in life than to make three girls very, very happy.