A Perfect Storm

It was a perfect storm. It was late Sunday afternoon after dinner. Four sated adults talking to each other, not quite attentive to the conditions brewing upstairs. 

It was a pair of adult scissors, too easily accessible in a corner of Granma’s kitchen. A five-year-old itching to practice her recent mastery. 

It was a second floor landing above an open staircase in the front hall at Granma’s house. A two-and-a-half-year-old fascinated by testing the limits of gravity. 

It was a recently filled basket of snack-size bags of Goldfish crackers and Nilla Wafers. The five-year-old so irresistibly drawn to the slippery, thin texture of the shiny, puffy snack bags that after practicing her cutting skills to open a bag for her brother, she furtively carried all the rest of the bags upstairs where she neatly cut the tops off each of them. (Hey, at least she didn’t cut her brother’s hair, like her mother once did.) 

All these factors combined for a perfect storm of goldfish and cookies raining down up Granma’s stairs yesterday. 

Given the reactions of the parents, the chances of such a storm occurring more than once are rare. Although cleaning up the the storm's aftermath with the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner seemed more like a game than a consequence to the children. 

Granma thinks she is going to wait a few weeks for the weather to clear before she restocks her snack basket.