The vacuum cleaner is our only hope in an all-out war with Lego - Susan Morrison
There’s bound to be some Lego in our attic, even though our kids have grown and gone. We thought we’d given it all away, but I fear Lego is sentient, like those hive-mind aliens in Star Trek. It builds little Lego colonies in lofts, under beds and in cupboards. The bricks stick.
I suspect individual bricks move under cover of darkness. Sometimes they get as far as the door of the parental bedroom. That’s why they’re lurking directly in the path to the loo. They definitely weren’t there when the bedtime lights went out.
There are parents reading this now suffering terrible flashbacks. I’m so sorry. We all remember the moment the naked foot lands on the sharpest corners in history and the nubbly bits on top wedge into the base of the foot. Someone solely designed them to do this.
Don’t think you’ve got away lightly by stepping on an upside down brick. The tube-y bits on the bottom have a suction function, pulling bare flesh in and sticking solid.
The only way to disengage is to hop and pull. You really, really want to let rip with an expletive, but the leaping about will cause the dressing gown to fly open.
This will have to be done in silence, lest a wakeful child see things they really shouldn’t. Also, you might not have put a dressing gown on at all.
The vacuum cleaner is the enemy of colonising Lego. Many a parental hoover regularly rattled with the sound of sooked-up bricks clattering about in the interior. They were explorers, caught in the open.
Compared to today, our Lego was pretty basic. There were two, four and six nubble bricks, and white singles. They were particularly prized, because they became rarer as time went on.
We thought we lost them. Now I think they were the first to strike out, and like all pioneers, some made mistakes.
One wound up in our dog’s food. We spotted it, but mum wasn’t quick enough to stop the inevitable. We all screamed blue murder and told dad we would have to take Whisky to the vet. That was the dog’s name, by the way, not the way we paid vets back in the sixties.
Nah, said dad, calmly. Nature will take its course. Which it did. Dad gave the brick a wipe and put it back in the box. Me and my brother marked it carefully and never used that brick again.
Today Lego has evolved into all kinds of sets and kits. This proves my point. This thing is alive and thinking. Adults are onside now, the bare foot trauma forgiven.
Up in the St James Quarter there’s an entire Lego shop, like a giant colony. It’s always full of grown ups, and they are not buying for kids.
In May there’s an entire festival at Meadowbank. Rather wonderfully, it's called Edinbrick. Now, this is what worries me.
If I’m right, and intelligence lurks in those cheery looking bricks, sheer mass of numbers will allow the Lego to go full Borg and decide to replace the real city with their own version.
It would not surprise me in the least to wake up and find the castle battlements suddenly red, blue and weirdly angular.
Keep your vacuum cleaners close, people. It's the only thing Lego fears.