The vanillas are invading

My brother came to visit today from South Jersey. Originally, we were going to go to the Mets game this afternoon, but since it was raining on and off all morning, we didn't think that was a great idea. It started thundering and pouring later on, so I was pretty glad about our decision.

He was already on his way so we had to have him over at our apartment for a visit instead. Rad and I did a quick sweep of the area to hide any "goods." We spotted one suspect DVD on the entertainment center, which we moved to the bedroom, but we didn't think there was anything else.

My brother is very curious, and, as usual, spent a lot of time looking at and commenting on things in the apartment. He's also a photographer, and was snapping a few shots of my cats. At one point he turned on the hallway light to get a better shot of my orange cat. I looked over and, there in the corner near the bathroom door, saw this:
"This" is a poster tube that we'd stored some of our canes in temporarily. The thing sticking up in the middle is a birch switch (see Canes 4 Pain); there are about eight other canes in that container.

You can see one of the larger canes also visible near the top of the tube. I'm thinking to myself, Oh, jeez. Here we go. I'm finally going to have to answer some 'questions.'

This is the one brother that would probably be pretty open-minded about all of "this thing we do," but that doesn't mean I'm ready to talk about it with family. Thinking, thinking, thinking ... what could I pass off these canes for if he asked about them? I do a lot of crafts, and there's a possibility he could accept that I was using them to make a "frame" or some other decoration ... eh, probably not.

What happens next is he goes into the kitchen briefly to take more cat pictures. I quickly step over, grab the tube, slip it into the bedroom and close the door. Whew! No questions! Did he notice it at all? Who knows? We are safe from the vanillas one more day.