Measure twice, cut once

I was rushing around like a headless chicken; measuring, collecting cardboard and forming the plan of attack. My mission? To build a scale model of a Volkswagen bus for Hard Materials at school. This was not going to be an easy task.

“Ah,” I said, “Old cardboard boxes. They should come in handy!”

I sped into the office and selected my weapon of choice, my trusty gun (hot glue gun, that is!).

On my way out, I grabbed a few cardboard tubes. I was ready. It goes without saying that, along with doing Hard Materials at home, I didn’t have a workshop, instructions, or even a qualified teacher! I just had to wing it.

I summoned my loyal sidekick, who goes by the name of Dad. We set to work cutting, glueing, and measuring. All was well. We even spent some time outside building in the beautiful autumn sunshine! But soon, disaster struck! I had made a wrong cut and we had a cardboard shortage – or so I thought.

Dad’s boss, Mum, had a secret stash. Normally you would take cardboard for granted, but in this situation it was like gold dust. Would you believe that simple things like flour, hand sanitiser, tinned food and even toilet paper were sold out at the supermarket! People must have been stocking up their survival kits in case this Covid crackpot took over.

My sidekick gave me some helpful advice: measure twice, cut once.

A few weeks later, we had a good-shaped model. Dad and I looked at each other, knowing what was to come next.

“Paint,” we said to each other.

Soon enough, we were speeding along in the Dadmobile toward his hideout.

“All the shops are closed because of this Covid thing, so we’re going to have to go with Plan B. This is the only place we’re going to be able to get paint,” he said as he retrieved a keycard from his pocket.

I gave him a look that clearly said, “How do you know this?”

“I know a guy,” he added.

After we had looted a few cans of paint from Dad’s hideout, we drove back to base and began the painting process. This took us another couple of weeks, but the finished project was outstanding. (If I do say so myself.)

And not only had we created a masterpiece, we had created something that would forever be a memory of the experience of the Lockdown and of the time spent in our impenetrable bubble!