There’s a bit of an unwritten law among Lego geeks that gluing a kit together is taboo —unless you’re creating something for use in Legoland, where presumably, large scale models that could be pulled apart would pose a danger to visitors, not to mention a lot of maintenance work and rebuilding at the end of the day. Building the kits by the instructions is fun, but it gets better when you pull them apart and the pieces are added to the collective Lego bin where imagination takes over. Can’t do that if the model is permanently stuck together. My kids’ playroom has a massive tub of Lego pieces that has assimilated everything from the Hogwarts castle to the Batmobile and countless Star Wars sets.
Four lightsabers and he can’t even take on a pair of common house cats… Photo by Brad Moon
However, I have a General Grievous kit I received as a birthday gift a few years back; once assembled, the General assumed a place on my desk, where he has remained. At the time, I wrote about some concern about how this rather fragile model would fare should one of the cats decide to take him on. The dogs I’m not worried about —they respect my stuff. The cats are another matter and seem to take great delight in reminding me that they have free reign throughout my office. In the past few years the General has been deliberately pushed over the edge several times, once smashing so thoroughly that I pretty much had to disassemble him back to his 1,085 constituent pieces and start from scratch. Sometime during our recent vacation, the cats struck again, defiling my office and, unbeknownst to our house sitter, sent the Lego model plummeting over the edge of my desk once again. The damage wasn’t as complete as previous times, but I’m beginning to tire of this war of wills. The way I see it, I have several choices:
- Declare the cats the victors, put him back together again and move him to a high shelf.
- Grit my teeth, put him back together again and put him back on the desk.
- Declare the cats the victors, pull him completely apart and add the pieces to the Lego bin.
- Pwn the cats by gluing General Grievous together and putting him back on the desk.
I don’t like the first option. While many people loathe the character (and everything else to do with Episodes I-III), General Grievous has grown on me —I don’t want to stick him up out of sight. Besides, height is no guarantee of safety. These are Ninja cats we’re talking about. One of them once disappeared for a day, then dropped through a ceiling tile in the basement, taking out one of my printers during the landing. The second option is getting old. Sooner or later, pieces are going to be lost or I’m going to get so fed up I’ll resort to option three without thinking it through. Option three is a definite “no.” Keeping this kit out of the communal Lego collection is hardly depriving my kids and I know that once he’s in there, the general will never see the light of day intact and in his original form —kind of like the original Star Wars films. The first three options also involve acknowledging the superiority of the cats, something that I refuse to do. I’ll clean their litter, buy the organic cat food, vacuum the hair, mop up the furballs and foot the vet bills, but they are not the boss of me.
Which brings me to option four. I’m thinking it’s time to throw out the rulebook and bring out the glue.
