Just as he stacks the dice, the otters tune out

Name: Just as he stacks the dice, the otters tune out
Uploaded: 2021-08-18T10:00:06Z
Duration: 4 min 31 s
Description: A man sits at a wooden table with a cup and a pile of red dice, trying to learn a juggler's trick. Two otters have front-row seats.

A man sits at a wooden table with a cup and a pile of red dice, trying to learn a juggler's trick. Two otters have front-row seats. more

The trick is dice stacking. You scoop the dice up with a cup and try to land them in one neat pile. He fails, and fails again. Hana is the first to take charge, and she watches every try closely.

She sits in a chair across the table like a kid at dinner. Then she starts playing with the dice herself, as if to show him how it goes. A few more misses, and she climbs right up onto the table.

A small otter sniffs a red, spotted object on a wooden table beside a person's resting arm. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third. — Hana is the first otter to take an interest, studying the dice up close on the table.

Even with Hana's help, it'll not come together. Kotaro wanders over, puzzled by the whole business, and stares as his human shakes the dice in the cup. Soon both otters are eating and drinking, keeping half an eye on the practice.

So he goes off to study how it's done. When he comes back, the dice start to behave. He stacks them, and stacks them again, and they stay put. Kotaro's part in all this is to knock the tower flat. His human just builds it again.

A gray otter with white markings indoors, surrounded by red dice on a wooden table. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third. — A man sits at a wooden table with a cup and a pile of red dice, trying to learn a juggler's trick.

Now that the trick is finally his, the otters stop caring. Anyone who has learned a new skill to show their kids knows this moment well.

A dark-furred otter with white face markings crawls across a wooden floor near a blue rug. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third. — Just as the stacking finally works, the otters wander off to do their own thing.

Kotaro goes to sleep. Or he tries to. Hana, it turns out, has a juggling act of her own, and she picks this moment to show it off, loudly. After all that practice, the best juggler in the house may still be Hana.