A Matter of Angles

A flat wooden protractor had slid off the drafting blotter, resting faceup on the sunlit sill. Its arched semicircular curve faced outward, but a stray wooden toothpick had drifted onto its center, pointing at an arbitrary sixty-seven degrees. Such an unresolved coordinate invited unnecessary ambiguity. Approaching with measured tread, I planted my front paws squarely against the painted pine molding. Using the tip of my nose with earnest leverage, I nudged the slender timber stick until it swung precisely into the ninety-degree vertical groove. The reading is now definitively square.