Can You Dig It?

Toby had seemed genuinely happy when his father gave him the Laegendary Digger 1:14 Scale Remote Control Excavator. The boy’d immediately taken it, along with a bunch of his toys, outside to play.

But now he’d been out there for almost forty minutes, and whenever his father looked out the back window, hoping to see him having a great time, the digger was just sitting there. It had yet to dig a single hole.

Finally, his father went to see what was going on.

“Everything going okay, Toby?” he said, walking over to the empty corner of the garden bed where Toby had set up.

“Yeah, I’m just playing with my new digger,” Toby said.

“Is that so?” his father said. “But you’re not, you know, digging with it.”

“Well, it’s stalled,” Toby said.

“Really?” his father said, inspecting the digger. “It stalled? It’s supposed to be able to handle a variety of terrain. I’d be shocked if it couldn’t hold up to a little soil.”

“No, dad,” Toby said. “The project is stalled. See, the head of the planning board signed an NDA, so he couldn’t disclose what they were building. That’s this GI-Joe here. But this Bluey figure? She’s actually an investigative journalist. Sleuthing around, she uncovered the truth, which is that the project at the edge of town is an enormous new data center that will drive up electricity costs and nuke the town’s water supply. So all these toys are forming a human chain to stop the digger from breaking ground. Meanwhile, Batman–he’s the project’s funder–is claiming that these people are being paid by foreign governments to protest.”

Toby’s father surveyed the toys. “And where’s Batman?”

“Pfft,” Toby said. “He’s still up in my room. He’s a billionaire, dad. He wants to build these things, but he’d never live near one himself.”

“I mean, I’m impressed with how much thought you’ve put into this,” his father said, “but wouldn’t it be more fun to just play with the digger a bit? It’s got three independent motors to control the bucket, elbow, and main arm so you can really get precise with it. And if you need a storyline, maybe you could pretend they’re building a cool new school or something.”

Toby rolled his eyes. “Right, dad. It’s 2026, and they’re pouring tons of resources into public education. Very realistic.”

His father bit his lip. “Well, as long as you’re having fun,” he said.

On his way back inside, he thought, Maybe I should stop listening to my podcasts on the drive home from soccer.