Mantling

   When I was younger, way younger than today (and no this isn't a rendition of the Beatles tune HELP.)  I can recall the competition between my middle sister and myself.  We were all of eleven months apart, so it was more like dealing with a jealous twin.  That being what it may, I am sensitive to the possibility (which is another way of saying I suspect I am correct.) that I delay from the sake of mantling.

  
If you're unfamiliar with the term mantling, it is what crows, or any other predator birds do with their recent kills.  They hunch their shoulders and spread their wings over it. The adaptive rational for them doing that is base upon a pragmatics.  If you can keep other eyes from finding out what you have, you don't have to spend energy fighting to keep your bounty; you can have it all.  Tools we learn, are, after all, tools we learn.

   Now I have not taken a hammer to a screw in a very long time, but that doesn't mean to say I have not tried that approach somewhere in my past.  The idea is that I learn as quickly what does not work as what does.  But that is a harbored hope more than a proven correlation, I would venture to guess.

   So then....I mantle for the sake of greed. No, no, not that. I mantle for the sake of despair. Ah, that can be a target for dismantling. I fear...yes, don't we all? And as unreasonable as fear always is, I have my croaker-sack full.

   Croaker-sack is a burlap bag named thus because that is what you keep the frogs you catch in whenever you go about in the dark of night. You have to blind the frog with a flashlight see, then while evolution has taught them to freeze in circumstances of the unknown, you pluck them up. Unfortunately for them, we have learned to exploit that particular adaptation and use it against them; ergo, a sack full of frogs.

  It can be amusing to liken collecting fears to capturing vulnerable frogs, but I sense you'll get the idea that filling up the bag can be pretty effortless in both cases. I choose to not go into what you do with the frogs, (or fears for that matter) when you get home. Let us just leave it at saying there are some disabilities coming up.

ahem

   So my plans, and oh I enjoy making them, are to keep a specific small portion of self appointed tasks on a visible list; accessible, and ready, so I have something to keep me busy. All the while secretly keeping mountains of other interest tucked and hidden away, almost like a hoarder, for another day when I run out of things to keep me amused.

This has got to change...as it is changing...just as writing about it is akin to aiming a high beam flashlight on children playing under a blanket.

"What are you kids up to?"

like frogs on a dark moonless night of hunting....getting nabbed and placed into a croaker sack.

Would it really be wise to say playing doctor?

probably not

small voices utter, "Nuth-in"

too late.