Small boys attract

dirt like magnets attract iron filings.
A friend of his arrived about five yesterday afternoon. He was "just picking something up" and he would "not stay long".  Perhaps.
His friend had arrived looking, for a male who dabbles in woodwork and other such hobbies, very clean and tidy. He would not have passed muster with the Dirt and Dust Patrol but he really did look remarkably clean and tidy.
The Senior Cat on the other hand had been in The Shed. He was wearing an ancient pair of trousers covered in paint and glue stains and a shirt which has seen better days. (The shirt now has three different sorts of buttons on it.) The laces of his Shed Shoes have a knot in them. "Yes, I'll get around to changing them," he told me. Nothing has happened.
His friend was wearing trousers with only one paint stain, a fresh one, and a shirt with matching buttons. Hmm.
They disappeared to The Shed. I could hear them out there. Timber was shifted. Machinery was started up. Something was sawed and shaken and stirred.
At almost six-thirty they reappeared. They were covered in sawdust. There was a fresh stain on the friend's trousers and a button hanging loose from his shirt. The Senior Cat looked no better than he had before.
He went to wipe his hands on his trousers and dislodge more sawdust on the floor. I stopped him.  It makes the floor slippery.
          "I know," he said, "Grottus domesticus".  It is the family term for someone who is not very clean.
          "More like "grottii domesticii"," I told them, "Outside and dust yourselves down."
They went out giggling like two small children and then came back looking only a little cleaner.
Apart from the genuine problem with a slippery floor the dirt does not bother me. I actually rather like it. It means the Senior Cat is doing one of the things he loves to do and I would not stop him for anything. If he can do it at 90 then it really is marvellous.
The problem is though that I am not actually sure what it is that he and his mates actually do to get so dirty. I mean, they were only sawing up a piece of timber weren't they?