Nutter, Honey

I'd practice my final presentations with Double-A. He was always hanging around, after all, so I supposed he had some interest, something to say about things, and I wanted a second opinion. He had listened in on all the client conversations. Maybe he'd see something I missed.
I showed him schematics for a corkscrew ring. For a public fountain made of giant cascading titanium tacos. For a rainbow machine to mount on parade floats.
"Rahk! What is all this FOR?"
I was a little crestfallen that he wasn't following the design intention, after all. How could this be so? He had handled interim client calls flawlessly.
"whaddya mean, what is it for? You know what it's for!"
"What?"
"What?"
"WHAT!"
"HWHAAT!" I had the lung capacity to blow him off of his perch, and I was angry enough to do it, but I checked myself.
"It's just …" Then he'd huff his little, whistling huff.
"Go ahead. Tell me what you want."
He'd hide his eye under his wing.
Roller skate stilts, Hydraulic clocks. Dust-powered lamps.
"Rahk! Why are you doing this?"
"Whaddya mean, why I am I doing this?"
"It's CRAP!"
"It's not crap, damn you! Tell me why it's crap … Oh! Who are you to say it's crap."
He was quite willing to look over my shoulder all day long and watch me work, but he approved of none of it. I kept the window open, and reminded him every time he gave that little bird-sigh, "Double-A, the window is open."
Then he started building models from some balsa and scraps I had in a canister in a space I used for storage, hidden behind a Chinese screen. I was glad, after all that time, if he didn't have one constructive comment to make, if he was going to condemn the lot of it, if he was going to keep saying "There's a better way! There's a better way!" and not tell me what it was, yes, I was glad that he had finally found something else to keep himself busy.
I'd check in:
"Whatcher doin' Double-A?"
"Nutter, Honey!"
"Okay, I'm not looking!"
If he didn't want me to know, that was fine with me. Sometimes I worried when I'd hear him using the Dremel or the jigsaw, or when the smell of glue was getting too intense.
Before leaving at night, I'd look in just to see that the area was in order, that he hadn't left the burnisher on, and I changed the newspaper in the area he generally habituated during the course of the day. But I didn't look at his project, since that was his stated wish.