A Walton's Mayberry
Sunday, July 24, 2011
In which the silliness of Sunday afternoons commences as usual in Mayberry town…
Puck was obsessed.
Gloria had gifted him her old metallic-pastel-pink cellphone, which was no longer battlestar-operational. Noise, lights, and camera worked. That was enough for Puck.
“I’m gonna text Daddy,” he would often say.
Technical phrases came naturally to him as he flipped it open…
“I’m gonna look that up on my phone’s lahp-top”…
“Pure joy in every note makes one word”…
Church was a little weird.
New worship leader. Test drive. Visiting pastor, Professor of Theology from College of the Ozarks. Hand-raising, Amen-ing, standing during the offertory. Just a little odd…
The guest preacher even wore cowboy boots.
This was not… normal…
And Puck watched everything through a telescope he made of red paper.
Back at the house…
Rose was spooning through a saucer of cookies and cream ice cream.
“Breakfast of champions,” said Carrie.
Joe was at the second service.
Dad, Francis, and Linnea dropped off Mom at Michael’s to pick up candy molds and embellishments for her Jane Austen book club that Friday night.
Discussions…
“Lucia’s latest thing has been calling me up whenever she hears a crack of thunder so I can hear it over the line,” said Carrie.
The neighbor girls brought over a gift of a dolphin-infused glass block and fifteen dollars to Linnea for watching their chickens while they were at Gulf Shores. Though a raccoon had done away with one. And the other, whom Carrie said that Linnea had insulted, left the puniest chicken egg they had ever seen.
Rose was convincing Puck that Snuggles was hopping a plane to Africa to practice being a jungle cat.
Puck was in make-believe land…
“Come on, Ghosts! You’re wasting time. I’m calling to my Ghosts. They just want to do appearing. Come on, Snuggs. Lead them.”
The storm was dissipating.
Joe was commenting on his leg hair.
“Check out these bad boys,” he said, lifting the cuff of his jeans. “Sometimes I groom them. With a horse comb.”
Groans.
Rose was saying something about needing to purchase cactus soil…
And there was a shared iPhone film of Earnest grooming Dad’s head.
Francis did his best to dodge attempts of random sister-punches at his gut. This was not uncommon. He only grinned.
“Come here,” said Carrie. “I just want to punch you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re there.”
“Would you rob a bank just because it’s there?”
“What does a bank have to do with your belly?”
“They both hold a lot of stuff.”
Joe was convincing Rose to carry some sort of self-defense mechanism with her in the city. Rose opted for a tazer.
By this time, the kitchen was full of everyone, waiting for lunch to be served. So Carrie brought in some leaves from the sweet basil on the patio to accompany the carrots. And then there was a roast. Cheddar biscuits. And more salted butter fudge for dessert.
Some sun on the patio after lunch, while Mom and Dad left for the hospital. After some minutes of overheating, Rose warned Puck to tell Linnea to come inside so that she wouldn’t get sun stroke.
“Come in, Lila!” he called. “You’re gonna get sun rack!”
Shortly later, OLeif took Puck to the movies: Winnie the Pooh.
Carrie was bribing massages from the girls.
“My bio-cranial is sore. Ask me any question in the world and I will tell you the answer, if you give my neck a massage. Ooh, Linnea, your legs are much softer than Rose’s.”
“That’s because I moisturize,” said Linnea.
“Oh, yeah?” said Rose indignantly. “Well, I earth-ize.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means I don’t do anything to them.”
Then they all ganged up on Francis to embarrass him about random notations of life…
This was followed with Carrie-Bri, Joe, and Rose looking over the Fiat 500 as a possibility for Rose’s car after trading in the Civic.
The clothes dryer was spinning a solitary article of clothing, Francis’ shorts, and sounding much like a rusted merry-go-round at an abandoned public park.
OLeif and Puck returned with kettle corn and cold chocolate sodas from World Market. The kettle corn was immediately shared in, by the rest of the family.
Not long later, Mom and Dad returned to find that Joe had joke-rearranged all of the furniture in the living room.
Little Caesar’s.
Carrie’s peach cobbler.
Nightly news.
Rose mentioned the thought of bringing gummy eyeballs to Annamaria’s Hitchcock-themed party on Wednesday night…
All ten clustered Walton-style in the kitchen, checking out the possibility of Rose’s new transport. Everyone had an opinion.
“Looks like a cross between a mini and a bug, and the bug is winning,” said Carrie.
“I like everything,” said Rose. “Except for that rat tail on the top. I’ll just cut that off.”
She had pretty much settled on the dark orange with Italian racing stripe.
Puck was practicing standing on one’s leg.
And wave-off from the porch.