But I'm Just

One of the things that one notices immediately if one is in any sort of position of authority over Margaret is that her semantic wranglings are worthy of an imprisoned English Jesuit trying to avoid the stake.

For example, when one tells her that she should not dig in Nana's garden, because Nana has asked her not to, and it's bad for the pretty flowers, her response is not to stop digging, but rather to say "I'm not digging; I'm just scraping the dirt with the shovel."

When requested to leave the dirt that she was scraping inside the confines of the rocks and not dump it on the grass, she responded that she was not dumping it on the dirt, but rather cleaning the shovel.  Repeatedly.

Anyway, here is a series of pictures of Margaret neither digging nor putting dirt on the lawn.

You can see Ellie in the background quietly getting into mischief.  I am rather certain that she does, you know, do all sorts of horrible things that I don't notice because Margaret is standing in front of me doing  something she shouldn't ostentatiously.