His name is Thor Michaelson. He’s a Shark/Garbage Disposal/German Shepard mix.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but there are seventeen additional rows of teeth in there.
Also, I’m pretty sure he’s at least one eighth ninja.
With glowing eyes to hypnotize you into giving him all the turkey hot dogs.
Thor Michaelson came to live with us last month as a perfect 12 weeks old, macro-world example of Brownian movement.
We were going to name him just plain-old Thor until someone (who recently hosted a Harry Potter movie marathon (Hint: it’s Catfish)), asked if we could name him ‘Fluffy’.
I patiently explained that you cannot name a dog German Shepard ‘Fluffy’, especially one that is part shark. I did, however, agree to the alternate plan which is that if he accidentally grows two extra heads, we get to name him ‘Fluffy’.
Here he is in the living room trying to grow an extra head.
Then someone (still Catfish) suggested we name him ‘Snowy’.
I explained that we couldn’t name a black and tan dog ‘Snowy’ but agreed to the second alternate plan which is that if he accidentally turns all white, ‘Snowy’ was a go.
Admiral Sparkle-Punch took this suggestion literally and spent ten minutes dumping snow on Thor Michaelson's head in an attempt to further the cause.
The suggestion of Brandon was turned down on the grounds that Thor is a way cooler name and no one names a dog Brandon.
Same for Brundin, Brinnon and Percy.
Jokingly I suggested we name him Mike. To my surprise, Catfish agreed immediately.
Which sucked because I then had to tell him I lied. I wasn’t going to name the dog Mike. I was naming it Thor. That was the end of it. He countered with his go-to argument:
“Why do you ALWAYS get to [name the dog]?”
In the end, we compromised and agreed to name him Thor Michaelson. It’s kind of awkward to shout across the yard but at least he knows when we’re talking to him.
He loves it when we talk to him. Especially since any conversation he engages in has a fairly good chance of ending in either A) tummy rubs or B) turkey hot dogs.
He loves tummy rubs. He loves turkey hot dogs. He loves everything!
He loves walks!
This happens every 13.2 seconds
He loves running!
...away from Admiral Sparkle-Punch.
He loves his tail!
When it stands still long enough to get a good look at it.
In the enthusiastic words of my son, today was the “best day ever!”
I must say, I have to agree.
Not only did we go shopping for new pants (who doesn’t love pants that fit?) but we also got new shoes, had lunch at his favorite restaurant (the dining room of the Top Foods) and then we went home and kicked some homework in the a$$ before kicking a m$%^@#-f*%&^ing board in half at Tae Kwon Do belt testing.
Wow, sorry about that. I’ve never been to belt testing before. It was pretty intense.
Anyway, what really started this day out on the right foot was a discovery Catfish made while getting himself breakfast. Apparently he poured himself some cold soy milk in the blue plastic cup. After a moment or so, he noticed that the blue cup had turned bright purple. He studied it carefully before coming to show me.
I think that’s weird. Don’t you think that’s weird?
The cup, I mean. Not the kid. (okay, maybe a little the kid, but he’s my kid, so it’s okay with me.) Think about that cup for a moment. We’ve had it for two years. Not once, in two years, has anyone noticed that it turns bright purple when you fill it with cold soy milk.
After making this important discovery, Catfish was compelled to share it and possibly get a second opinion on it. When he showed it to me, I got all excited because he was all excited. He wanted to dink around and figure out more stuff about the cup. Finally, an opening! Usually, if I try to inject some scientific reasoning into our conversations he just goes all silent and requests that I “stop trying to teach [him] things”.
I was also excited because it was, well…it was exciting. It’s like all this time we’ve owned what we assumed was a boring blue cup. But then Catfish discovered that it has latent magical powers! It was so cool.
Together we decided that the cup must turn purple when it’s cold. Then we hypothesized that it would revert back to the original blue color when warm. Catfish decided to test the hypothesis.
I’m not going to lie to you, between 1:01 and 1:05, I almost cried. F’realz.
When Admiral Sparkle-Punch was eight months old, she discovered the joy of mashed potatoes. She loved them with wild abandon. Often when she’d eaten all the potatoes on her plate, she looked to Brian for more.
One evening, she was looking especially cute with her pudgy little arms and her mashed potato hair.
Exactly as cute as this, and then covered in mashed potatoes.
All three of us sat there, Catfish, Brian and I, transfixed by how cute it was that she loved potatoes so much, completely oblivious to the fact that she had almost eaten all the potatoes on her plate.
When she finished them, she looked to Brian who smiled and waved at her, totally ignoring the fact that she wanted more. This must have pissed her off because instead of smiling and cooing, she glared at him with white hot rage and folded herself in half. When she resurfaced again, ten seconds later, she had turned a deep angry red. All three of us, Brian, Catfish and I, reacted as if a bomb was about to go off. And in a sense, it did.
She didn’t scream.
She didn’t cry.
She swore.
As she so clearly is doing, here.
Sure, it was baby-babble. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t four-lettered baby-babble. It was the first time I’d ever seen someone that young, fire off that many F-bombs without uttering a single comprehendible word of English.
I don’t know why I was surprised.
At four months pregnant, we went in for the ultrasound where they make you drink water until you’re about to pee your pants, then they measure the fetus to make sure it adheres to the Pythagorean theorem before they count all the appendages and tell you if it’s a girl (4) or a boy (5).
The technician had just finished measuring something vitally important like the elbow to navel ratio, when the fuzzy potato-flipper thing we’d been looking at, turned toward the camera and gave us the finger. No, really.
It was then when I realized we were having a daughter.
Unfortunately, the technician refused to give us a picture of it. I begged. I pleaded. I assured her that it would not be used against my daughter for any nefarious purposes. Still, that stubborn woman refused.
I’m not bitter about it or anything though.
Especially not when I have pictures like this.
Whatever, now we’re here, in real life and swearing is a thing. It used to not be a thing but I’m pretty sure that was only because Sparkle-Punch didn’t have the best annunciation back then. She’s much more articulate now and swearing is definitely a thing. So much of a thing that we have had to make a new rule.
Potty words go in the bathroom. If you want to swear, you must do so in the bathroom.
Surprisingly, I get called out on this more often than one would think.
I’m not sure how well the rule is working though. Mainly because the bathroom is directly across from the bottom of the stairs, which is arguably the most densely occupied spot in our entire house.
Catfish sits at the bottom of the stairs to dress every morning. I sit at the bottom of the stairs to help Sparkle-Punch get ready for school. Anyone in time-out must sit there until they calm down. Whichever parent is currently in charge of bath sits there when SP is in the bathtub (swearing her little heart out). Everyone sits there to put on shoes. Occasionally, Katzuhiro even sits there to hide.
You have no idea how hard it is to hide this cat, all at once.
So, by regulation, any swearing has to be done really close to the spot where everyone is likely to hang out. This is why we sometimes have to put up with Sparkle-Punch shouting “DOO-DOO HEAD!” and “DUDE-A-PANTS!” in an earsplitting shriek, for the entirety of her evening bath.
But sometimes this works to my advantage. Such as when a Lego-fight breaks out nearby and I can voice my concerns about such jackassery without having to turn off the hair dryer. Followed closely by the disclaimer that “I am totally standing in the bathroom so I can totally say that!” lest Catfish try to trip me up on a technicality.
Mom, you totally just said a bad word.
This afternoon turned into one of those days when Sparkle-Punch makes me sit at the bottom of the stairs so she can pretend to do my hair. This means that she runs around with a wide-toothed comb telling me to sit still so she can ‘get the rabbits out’. Then she rakes the comb across my scalp with surprising strength.
After one such raking, she decided more weapons were needed to battle the rabbits and ran to her room, no doubt searching for something sharp and pointy. When she yelled at me to keep my head down, I kept my head down.
Seconds later, I spied the creeping, sockless toes of a six-year-old. He saw my head bowed and decided to take advantage of the moment by trying to scare me while I wasn’t looking.
Silly little boy! He doesn’t understand that I’m never NOT looking. He sneaked, trying to stifle giggles, right up in front of me.
In order not to tip my hand, I kept my head down and pretended not to notice. But then the moment stretched out and I realized that Catfish had no idea what to he was going to do. Should he scare me? Should he try to tickle me? What was the best way to attack a mom when she’s down?
If there is one thing these battles require, it’s decisive action. Something Catfish lacks but I have in spades.
I pounced.
With my head still down, I shot my hands out and grabbed him by the tummy, roaring as loud as I could. To say it scared the bejesus out of him would be accurate; which is why the next part was so funny.
After we stopped laughing, he straightened up and put on his serious face (which is super cute right now because he’s got new front teeth and they’re huge and he’s so sincere when he’s being serious). Standing rigid in the middle of the hallway, with his most grown-up face, he looked at me and said:
“Mom, you FREAKED M-“
Then he stopped suddenly and looked intently at his feet. Then he looked up to me, almost as intent and took an exaggerated step backward so that he stood just inside the bathroom door. He faced me again.
“Mom, You freaked the HELL out of me!”
I would like to point out that I was totally standing in the bathroom at the time I said the double-hockey-sticks word.
I started making the almond butter because there was a kid in class that couldn’t have peanuts but Catfish still really wanted peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. Also, I was too cheap to buy cashew butter twice.
The tortillas came about after the Central market installed their Tortilla-Tron 2000 and my husband switched from the plasticy mass-produced kind to fresh-made. Occasionally I too, bought the fresh made ones (because they were superior) but not without getting all huffy about paying $4 for something I could make at home.
And LO! They weren’t all that hard to make. Then Sparkle-Punch got involved and began insisting that we make tortillas every time she saw me near the kitchen. (There seems to be something about wielding the large wooden rolling pin that soothes her.)
The bacon? That was mainly for shits and grins.
(Plus… home made bacon! How can that not be awesome? I mean, unless you’re vegetarian. And, in that case it is probably very un-awesome. But fortunately for me, I am not vegetarian.)
I won't lie to you, it was glorious.
That bacon was yummy.
But thus far, I have resisted making granola. Why should I do that? I like granola. There are literally hundreds of people, all over the internet, touting it as a super great snack!
It’s so tasty!
It’s incredibly healthy!
It’s like Nature’s own candy! (actually, that one might be pineapple so, never mind there.)
What I’d like for you to understand though; what I have learned over the past three weeks; what you should know before you get all excited about the next biggest thing in snack food is that These people are lying to you.
They make granola because after the first sweet handful of toasted almonds and brown sugar they can no longer stomach the anemic rice-puffed travesty of cereal-aisle Muslix. They have succumbed to the siren song of rolled oats and dried fruit.
For them, Kashi is anathema.
I warn you, dear reader, if you make this recipe there is no going back. You will not finish the rest of the cereal in your cupboard until the entire batch of granola is gone and, by that time, you won’t want those stale Crunchberries anyway. The Captain is going to be crushed.
Good luck and God Speed.
Festive, whole-grain crack.
OMFGRANOLA
First, preheat your oven to 250 F. Then, in a big bowl, mix together:
6 c. rolled oats
2 c. Sliced almonds
2 c. chopped pistachios
1 c. wheat germ
3/4 c. dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
Mix all that up really well. I’m not kidding here. Get your hands in there and mix all that stuff up. (Make sure you wash them first though because, ew.) In a pyrex 2 cup measure mix the following:
3/4 c. pure maple syrup (Don’t skimp on this part. If you get imitation maple syrup everything will be ruined and the Communists win. Get real maple syrup.)
1/2 c. Vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Kitchen Chemistry alert! Use a pyrex measuring cup and pour the oil in first. Then pour the syrup slowly into it. You should be able to pour the maple syrup right through the vegetable oil so that it sits on the bottom of the measuring cup. You can now pour the vanilla in and it will sink to the phase interchange between the oil and syrup. Then, if the syrup is cold and you mix it all up with a fork, the whole mess will take on this weird lumpy texture which is super cool looking.
*sigh*
Science is so awesome.
Or you can just mix the syrup and oil and throw in some vanilla. It doesn’t have to be an exact teaspoon. Some vanilla is good enough.
Now, pour all that over your oats and stuff. Using two big spoons, toss the S-O-V mix well so that you coat every last flake of cereal that you can. Divide this mess up onto two large baking sheets and bake it for in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes, removing the pans from the oven every 15 minutes or so to stir the granola.
Let the granola cool before dumping it all back into a big bowl. Add:
2 c. dried cranberries
And mix well with a big spoon. Now, try not to eat it all in one sitting.
Post script: You don’t have to stick to this recipe. You can pretty much add anything you like. I add what ever I have that needs using up. I’m pretty certain that you could get away with uncooked tapioca balls if you covered it well enough with oil, syrup and brown sugar.
I don’t know how you do it at your house but around here, Saturday is the day that everyone helps out and tries to get chores done. All the regular ones, as well as the never ending punch list that comes mandatory with owning a house built during the first Roosevelt Administration.
My plan today had been a simple one: fold laundry, make granola then make almond butter. An easy, do-able list. Unfortunately for me, my approval rating with the female 0-3 YO demographic skyrocketed sometime around ten am.
Not only was I required to be present at both breakfast and elevensies but I had to hold her hand at lunch. Then it was requested that I help her dress for the day and brush her teeth. She was then insistent that I play ‘stuffies’ with her.
I asked her if she wanted to make the granola with me instead but she only shushed me and told me how much she hated granola.
At that point, I gave up. There is little point in arguing with a three year old once her mind is set that you will be playing stuffies-have-a-tea-party, unless you have a black belt in patience. I do not. That’s why I caved.
We fixed her room up for the tea party nicely and then invited all the dolls (Amelia, Keveliah, Demeela, and Shonila), two teddy bears, the red Angry bird, and a beanie baby rabbit named Baby Rabbit. Then we made a cake.
The first step was to get our ingredients which Sparkle-Punch did by grabbing all the books off her shelf and stacking them on a plate. For twenty minutes I thought we were making a literary cake but then it occurred to me that we weren’t actually putting the books in the recipe. She was merely looking up a recipe, which she found interestingly enough, in a pamphlet detailing all the different Hello Kitty Mego Blocks play sets.
I shall have to write to that company and extend my thanks for including a recipe.
As I have said, it was my job to detail all the ingredients for our cake. The following is an accurate list of ingredients and the method we used to bake it I only had time to write this quick because Admiral Sparkle-Punch has not finished stalking me today. Before I snapped, I calmly insisted that she go to her room and take a nap. She interpreted this command as “go to your room and sing Simon & Garfunkle’s Cecilia twenty seven thousand times”.
We are at sixteen thousand and counting.
Admiral Sparkle-Punch Chocolate Literary Cake.
Ingredients:
1 small fake cauliflower
1 mound of plastic succotash
1 spongy brain
plastic spaghetti
1 tiny goblet of water
plastic white bread
1 c. warm water
2 pc. watermelon
1 onion
1 pizza
1 pineapple
1 peelhead (I have it on good authority that this is also called an eggplant)
broccoli
a squeeze of bath soap
1 marshmallow pie
6 c. juice
6 c. flour
6 c. Bedroom set (which is totally a drink and nothing from the Hello Kitty toy collection)
water
milk
frosting
chocolate
Housemakersfelt (I am assured that this is “a food we need“)
2c. oil
2 c. spices
1 c. bagel
Candles
large squeaky hamburger
Using an IKEA child’s sautee’ pan, flip the plastic onion around for a while, as you pretend to sautee’. Take onion out, add salt-peppermint. Put IKEA pan down to search for Rabbit sugar.
As you search for Rabbit sugar, keep your eyes open for something in which to mix all the rest of the ingredients such as the square lid to the cat toy basket. This will work nicely.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the wicker lid and whisk well. Bake cake in the ‘Big Oven’ for 16 minutes.
If you’ve been following this Epic Saga of goblinvs.six-year-old then you already know that Catfish (the six year old) has been busy these last few weeks. After a week’s worth of riddling, he was ready to see how all this resolved itself.
Frankly, so was I.
In order to put this adventure to bed, I had to make the end both complete and satisfying or we were going to have problems. Catfish was still on a quest to capture Finkmeister so that he could prove his claim at school. That was becoming an increasingly frustrating endeavor for him because he didn’t know how to win.
I thought about it this for several days and identified five elements that must be addressed in order for Catfish to be victorious (and stop trying to catch Finkmeister).
1. It needed to be believable. Finkmeister would have real treasure, not a bunch of Legos and Hot Wheels. Though such a stash would be awesome, it would also a dead give-away that this was all a hoax. Finkmeister likes to steal cold, hard cash from kids, not their toys.
2. It needed to include proof that this was happening. Something Catfish could take to school and show off to everyone. He needed validation from his peers because Mom and Dad were sadly inadequate.
3. It had to be difficult. Look, just because I’m his mom doesn’t mean that I’m going to let him slack-off in the end game. This is where the difficult bits come in. If it is too easy to figure out, then why go through all the bother? Stumbled-upon treasure isn’t as rewarding as hard-won treasure.
4. It had to be exciting and sinister and vaguely threatening. This goes without saying, right? The thrill of the hunt, chase, defense …whatever. It needed to feel real.
5. It needed to have a definitive answer. Without an answer we risk expectations of Finkmeister attacks later, after he loses the other seventeen thousand teeth he’s got in his mouth.
How the heck could I do all that?!? I had no idea so I did the next best thing: I winged it.
The day following the last, incoherent note from Finkmeister, he found this in the mailbox:
I think this has just the right amount of sinister-yet-vague threat, don't you?
Now that it was certain he won the duel, he could breath easy. And he did. He visibly relaxed when he knew what to expect. A treasure hunt, with a map and everything!
I was terrified of drawing anything like a map, had no idea where to put it and couldn’t figure out how to make difficult riddles, so I began with building the treasure.
A short trip to the Goodwill and I had loads of loot.
This looks pretty treasure-hoardy to me.
But what sort of treasure hoard would this be without money? I’d be damned if I was gonna give that kid a ton of real, actual, this-stuff-will-buy-me-Legos Money even though I could have scrounged at least ten dollars in change from various nooks and crannies in this house.
It’s just that, including US dollars seemed so… demeaning to the whole purpose of this adventure. As soon as he saw real money, the dollar signs in his eyes would brainwash him into thinking we were going to the damned toy store.
No. We were definitely not doing that. Toys weren’t the reward here. Getting to figure out the mystery was the reward. Money would just be confusing. Besides, Finkmeister stole money from kids everywhere, not just the United States.
Clearly, this treasure hoard called for foreign currency!
I put a call out an FB to my peeps – for any and all foreign coins they were willing to donate. It was surprising to see such an outpouring of good will. Everybody had a few coins from foreign parts that they wanted to include in the Finkmeister hoard.
I had already started making plans to collect said monies when my dear, sweet husband actually took notice of my post.
All of these people are awesome.
Then I went to the store and bought a handfull of chocolate coins and tossed them in. Voila! the hoard was complete!
This looks promising...
Now for the hiding and the map making.
I scouted out places around the yard where the treasure hoard could hide, without being too obvious. Once a suitable hidey-hole was established, I had to write the riddles, make the map and bury the treasure. All of which took the better part of a day. Plus, there was a lot of sand involved. I don’t like sand. There was a lot of swearing during that part.
In order to fulfill requirement 2 (proof that this was happening) I planned the whole shebang to take place on the upcoming day off from school. Catfish had already asked me three times if I would please please please make those doughnut things with all the powdered sugar for him again. I, being the sucker that I am, agreed.
Using the old “I’m going to make some fresh beignets, would you guys like to come over for a play date?” I was able to lure Catfish’s friend and his mom over that morning.
Surprisingly, it wasn't that difficult.
Map ready, treasure buried, beignets fried and liberally sprinkled, all we had to do was wait for the right time. After an hour we heard a few references to Finkmeister in their conversation. Then a few expectant sighs about a map. I asked if he’d checked for it lately…
OH MY GOODNESS! WHAT IS THAT THERE ON THE FRONT MAT?!?
The hunt is up! The hunt is up! And it is well nigh day!
To say this part was awesome would be an understatement. There were now TWO little boys standing in the front entryway, stunned speechless for the excitement of it. I think the best part was watching Catfish’s friend’s eyes go from ”Yeah, I’ve heard you talk about Finkmeister” to “HOLY CRAP YOU WEREN’T KIDDING!!”
Here is the ‘map’:
Apparently, Finkmeister is just as bad at drawing maps as I am. Go figure.
It was priceless. Us moms had to move quickly because six year old boys in search of illicit treasure hoards are not to be trifled with. If we wanted to get any pictures at all, we had to haul ass. They were already on to the first clue:
"That's easy! Let's go talk to Heather!" "Okay! Who's Heather?"
I don’t know who suggested Heather might be a plant. But soon enough, they were pawing through the shrubbery.
"I don't want to put my hand in there. You put YOUR hand in there." "I don't want to put MY hand in there...MOOOOM!"
And thus, a small plastic shovel was found. The second clue was much like the first. See if you can guess where we looked next:
Did you say SAGE? Because, you are so smart!
And they found a plastic gardening fork.
The third clue was a hint to the location of the treasure:
Wow, he seems a little upset there.
And before we get too far, the fourth clue wasn’t a clue at all. It was Finkmeister delivering a slightly unsettling threat:
Told you! He's kinda being a jerk.
But that part doesn’t matter, what matters is TREASURE!
And, of course…
"HOLY COW DUDE, THESE COINS ARE CHOCOLATE!!!!"
I believe the sentiment they are trying to convey here is "HELLZ YEAH!"
For those of you who want to paw through Finkmeister’s treasure too:
Soon after the Gentleman’s Duel was proposed, Catfish and his father came home to this on the front porch:
Say what you will, that Finkmeister can set up an atmosphere.
Upon inspection, they found it was the first riddle from Finkmeister!
Seriously? This guy spells worse than the cat.
Their immediate response was to grab the flash light and run wildly into the front yard, inspecting every tree the came across.
En Garde, You Scoundrel!
When that didn’t work, they tried a little bit of cogitation. As Catfish pointed out every tree in the yard, Brian realized that one of the trees was a potted ficus. It lives outdoors during the summer and it goes back inside for the winter. It ‘walks’, Get it? GET IT?
Catfish did too. He soon found this:
It's a compass!
He celebrated this first triumph by building an elaborate trap out of rope, three bungee cords and the rock-string-grappling-hook device Finkmeister used on an earlier trap. All in all, it was a very successful evening.
He didn't bait this one though. Apparently, it was just a victory trap.
After the trap building, Catfish went back outside to leave the lamp and compass (though he was sore to let them go) as he was instructed. It was hard to go to bed that night.
At six am the next morning he was dressed and waiting for the slowest parents in the world. When he was finally able to coax them downstairs, he rocketed outside. Where the lamp and compass had been, he found yet another scroll:
PS !! DESTROY!
Well, of course we could not let him search alone! In a snap, we were all outside hunting for the next token. The sea and the stone part was confusing until someone pointed out it must have something to do with water and rocks, both of which could be found in the patio fountain!
Catfish enlisted his father’s help to pick up and search the rocks around the fountain. I can’t say I blame him, those rocks tend to harbor large hairy things with too many legs.
After much wincing and turning of stones, they found this:
It breaks my heart to think from whom Finkmeister may have stolen this.
That day, it started raining.
If you live in the Pacific northwest, you know that “rain” this early in the season really means “120% humidity with a chance of puddles”. Catfish worried that there would be no dry place to leave the token for Finkmeister. And, in turn, no dry spot for him to leave his next riddle. I thought that was nice because, even though he’s dueling an imaginary goblin for thieving rights to our house, he still wants to be polite.
Brian suggested they build a small shelter to stash the stone. Maybe Finkmeister will get the idea to leave his note there. In case he still didn’t understand, Catfish left a note:
Poot the note under the oreng thing. PS Don't steal my stick!
Riddle solved for the day, Catfish returned to his victory trap, rewriting the laws of physics with every added string until the entire room was a morass of kitchen twine and impossible gravitational pull. Putting him to bed that evening was a treacherous endeavor.
Bright and early the next morning (again, six am) Catfish was alive and straining to get outside to check on the Finkmeister situation. He was not disappointed.
Sooo...Finkmeister can't spell 'could' and yet, he knows what a Thrall is. How is that possible?
This one was the hardest yet! The riddle, if there is one, is just a bunch of gibberish about how great Finkmeister is, so how do we solve it?
We read through the whole thing three times. Each time, cutting out more and more lines that clearly had no meaning other than to taunt. In the end, we studied the first two lines:
My last you will never find /It is forever one step, behind.
Catfish pointed out that “It’s probably behind a step. I know where there’s a step!”
That’s how he found the last, and grossest token:
Finkmeister's napped-out hat.
That hat was so dirty that Catfish insisted I wash it. (I finally figured out that he wanted to bring it to school the next day and show all the doubting Thomases.) His problem was that in order to win the duel, we needed to leave the token for Finkmesiter that very night. How could he leave the token, but also be able to take the hat to school the following day?
Easy peasey Lemon Squeezy! We left the laundry pin as the token! It showed that he did actually find the token, but it also allowed for his plans with the hat. It was a good plan.
But, like all well laid plans, it encountered a fatal snag: When Catfish picked up the hat in the morning, it was still too dirty to take to school. (For the record, I did try.)
Finkmeister wasn’t very happy with the jiggery-pokery though. In fact, he wasn’t happy with the way things had turned out at all!
I'm pretty sure he meant 'soap' there.
Flipping the scroll over, we see he is not finished being a jerk…
We beg to differ with you, Fink.
What would happen now? The third riddle made mention that Catfish will become rich if he returned all three tokens. Would that happen? How? Did Catfish really win the duel?
All valid questions! But, by the looks of his angry writing, it appears we wouldn’t be getting any useful information out of Finkmeister in the near future.
If only there was someone that could tell us what was going on…
