The Lego Minefield Maneuver

At seven years old, Leo had the grace of a ninja and the frailty of a house of cards. It was a rain-filled Saturday afternoon, and Leo's target was the ceramic jar sitting on the counter in the kitchen holding the last double chocolate chunk cookie. Leo slinked out of his bedroom in a pair of furry camouflage socks with complete confidence that he had neutralized all sound cues because of his slow and agonizing crawl. Leo thought he was pulling off the perfect robbery, but he was heading straight into a plastic minefield.

After three steps from his bedroom door, Leo stepped into the hall without having the slightest idea about how the older brother had been spending the morning recreating an out-of-control interstellar traffic scene involving hundreds of pieces of miniature Lego blocks. Taking one more step towards entering the kitchen area, Leo’s left foot made a high-speed connection with a neon green helmet made of Lego while the right foot slid on a two-inch-by-four-inch Lego block. The laws of friction instantly abandoned him.

The resulting tactical error was nothing short of astounding. With Leo’s legs being thrown upwards in an even horizontal position, his arms spinning wildly like the blades of a broken windmill before crashing down on his back with an almost eerie sound. The force unleashed itself to send a series of falling bricks crashing on the wooden flooring as if to unleash a sort of small scale bombing exercise. It did not take much time for his mother to raise her voice from the next room, asking whether the bookshelf had fallen.