No Squeezing Required

Friday. A crew of five today, one of them expecting a baby any week now, and one an older gentleman who told me cheerfully about his pacemaker before he had his hat off.

Neither needed to worry. There is no crawling in the shanty and no squeezing. Everything happens standing up, at your own pace. And there are hardly any sudden frights, because I spent the whole build talking the captain out of a cannon going off behind the door.

The mum-to-be ran the map table like an admiral. The gentleman found the thing everybody else had walked past four times and said, well, would you look at that, in a voice I intend to borrow.

The captain likes his hideout to be a fortress. I like mine to be a place anybody can come and have a go. Luckily he does not know there are two hideouts here. There is his, and there is mine, and they are the same room.

Gave the gentleman a nod at the door. He gave me one back. Some men understand each other without words.