Sometimes the good guys do win...

Pull out that trombone and assemble the parade because WINK came in 2nd at his cub scout pinewood derby today!  He's actually going to compete at the district derby next month.  If you don't know what the pinewood derby is- because I sure didn't until last year- it's a car race.  Scouts and their dads carve the cars out of wood, paint, and assemble (wheels, weights).  It's a riot to see how creative some of the cars are. But WINK's  Swiss cheese car (yes...carved to look like a wedge of cheese) was one of the few that was obviously worked on by a father/son team, with hand tools instead of power tools, at the kitchen table. 

None of us expected him to do so well. That sounds bad, but I mean that we never talked about the competition aspect of the race. But each time WINK's car pulled ahead of the other cars in the qualifying races (three cars race at a time, each car races six times, twice on each of three ramps), DAD and I  just stared at each other, open mouthed, from across the room.  I don't know how DAD kept his tone neutral as he MC'd the evening.  WINK showed little reaction when he won the first and second time. But by the third, fourth, FIFTH, he was jumping up and flexing his spaghetti arms in a weight lifter pose, his little wrists and hands turned awkwardly in toward his head. My little champion.

After a short snack break, the top ten racers were announced. WINK was third. After they raced, the winners were announced in reverse order. SMILE and I were sitting, truly, on the edges of our seats. I managed to stay composed but six year olds know nothing of diplomacy.SECOND PLACE!!  DAD and WINK ran over and we all became six year olds.  And that's a very good thing.