Some time ago, for reasons I’m not really sure of, I adopted the Army’s shout of “Hooah!”

I don’t think I use it the same way they do, though. For me, it’s a victory shout to use after I succeed at something exceedingly unlikely. Like when I get a strike in Wii Bowling, for example.

This morning, one of the dogs kicked over a large bowl of tiny beads. The little plastic things rolled and bounced across the throw rug the bowl had been sitting on – a multicolored rolling tide of plastic. My youngest and I were eating breakfast when it happened, and we both shouted in horror.

Picking up these beads is a terrible task. The things are tiny and roll every which way. When they’re on a carpet or rug, you have to work each one individually out from between the rug fibers.

I chased the dogs outdoors so they wouldn’t make any more of a mess, and then the little guy and I examined the problem. He knelt down and started picking them up. “I’ll help you, daddy.”

That’s when inspiration struck. “No, wait,” I said. “I think I have a better way. Can you hold the bowl for me?”

While he knelt down and held the bowl in place, I carefully gathered up the corners of the rug and tilted it. The beads rolled off the rug and into the bowl. I shook it a few times to get the last of them out and then dropped it back on the floor.

The little guy looked up and laughed as the last of the beads fell into the bowl. “That’s a Hooah, isn’t it, daddy?”

Yeah, it’s true. I didn’t really expect it to work either.