Thursday, October 18, 2012

31 for 21: Better Than It Looks: Oliver Twist

Quickie tonight, because I'm tired...

Article of Evidence #3:

If things ever got really bad, like pre-1800's England bad, we'd have Elise's pick-pocket skills to keep us in the manner we are accustomed...

Seriously, the girl has mad swiping skills. 

She takes stuff from the pantry and fridge regularly, and stashes them in the bathroom, under the guest room bed, or under her bed in a pinch...til the "heat" dies down, so she can indulge at her leisure.  Ethan caught her with an entire tupperware of fig newtons just last weekend...and no one heard her get them...

But my all time favorite case in point was back when she was little, still perfecting her skills.  When she was 7 or 8 we went to a family birthday party.  One of the guests was a man that Elise did not know, but she desperately wanted his phone, which was perched temptingly on his hip in a phone holster.  She kept sidling up to him and trying to take it.  He would nicely put his hand over it protectively, and say, "No, Sweetie."  Over and over and over this happened.  (She is nothing if not persistent.)  Finally, toward the end of the evening, she slipped up to him, and put her head against him...and he patted her shoulder...suddenly she looked up at the corner of the ceiling and gasped hugely.  I kid you not, every single person in the room looked up toward that corner, expectantly, while she calmly bumped up against him, lifted the phone and beat it toward the door.  He was still looking up at the ceiling and had not felt her professional steal.  I'd been watching her all evening, watching the calculation growing...and so when I, too, glanced up at the ceiling and saw nothing, I immediately looked back at Elise, and got to see the whole pick-pocket action.  I DIED laughing...I could barely get up to stop her and snitch back the phone!!  It was truly a master at work.  She was brilliant. 

Honestly, it was a little unnerving to see the calculation and success.  It was mind-blowing how she had read him, played him, and even figured in physical distraction techniques that most people would never even have thought of. 

And it is stories like this that comfort me and make me laugh, when the school psychologist tells me that she has no practical application skills.  When I am told that she has low outcome planning/projection, I can barely strangle back the ludicrousness of this idea.  She has a mastery of outcome projection/planning unlike anyone I have ever known.  She can read bodies, personalities, and expectations like a BOOK

The FBI should totally hire her to track criminal masterminds.  They would have no chance against her.  None.  Neal Caffrey eat your heart out.  Even you couldn't outfox these baby blues!!

2 comments:

  1. Cheeky little thing! Elise is quite clever. . . I would have peed my pants from laughing so hard at that birthday party. FBI, here come Elise!

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  2. I almost died laughing just reading it!

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