All in a Day's Try

Dream Account

We had a new pastor, I thought. I saw him in the office. A shorter fellow, sort of stocky, thin brown hair – possible goatee – long face, probably in a gray suit… can’t recall. Friendly, but left me thinking not so optimistically about him in general after first introductions at the office – which was somehow bigger and brighter, by the way. I guess I got bored with it, because the next thing I remembered was taking Puck out to purchase a Radio Flyer wagon. The table was already set by the time I woke up this morning.

“I put out all the breakfast dishes,” Puck informed me, with all the normality as though he did so every day.

They’ve started “warning” us at church, basically when it’s time to quit talking and hit the classrooms. The first warning equals something similar to soft chimes. The second is only a little more severe, picking up some brass. But the third is a thundering pipe organ. I think Ray Bolger was pretty proud of himself for coming up with that one. Maybe this congregation will be inspired to become a little more Von Trapp family in the process.

“When’s lunch Carrie?”

“Soon. Soup, salad, and… well, we would have had fresh bread if it wasn’t for someone slamming the door when he got back from church.”

“Hey!” Francis protested.

Carrie lifted the offended loaf from its silver coffin. She sawed off the dis-formed end.

“There,” she announced, hanging the edge of a slice that resembled an almost-perfect ‘E’. “There’s your slice, Francis.”

Francis obviously didn’t care, and began munching. He and Joe were in the middle of recalling Saturday night’s entertainment sequence in the basement, which apparently included Joe throwing Nerf darts high speend across the room at Francis’ cell phone.

“Yeah, that was fun,” Francis agreed. “We eventually started fighting…”

“Yeah, to relive old times,” Joe added.

We were minus Mom [still in Can-tuck] and Rose [something about servers in distress or whatever] at table.

“You owe me money, son,” Dad pointed at Francis.

“Yeah, you owe me for your girlfriend’s shoes,” I remembered.

“You owe me for a haircut.” Carrie added.

“Yeah, Francis.”

“Hey, Francis.”

“Francis, Francis…”

“Ok, ok,” Francis grinned, holding up hands in protest.

He removed his wallet from his pocket…

“Riiiiiiip,” Carrie immitated velcro.

Apparently the family has recently renamed Big Old Green. She [yes, “she”] is currently known as “Shelley”.

“Shelley?” The Bear asked.

“Yeah, it’s Francis’ girlfriend.”

“But why Shelley?”

“Because he has to take her on so many trips to Shell.”

“Good one.”

“Yeah, he has to be careful. She gets real jealous.”

“Right. He starts looking at other vans… ‘Uh, no, no, Shelley. I wasn’t looking.’”

“’No, I was scratching my ear.’”

Now that Carrie-Bri and Joe begin their first tours of the sky in the next weeks or something like that, plans were being made…

“Yeah, Joe and I are going to that flight shop and we’re going to buy a lot of those pilot’s stripes, tape them all over our shoulders, go to our first class like that. Our instructor’s going to be so impressed.”

“I’m going to get a tattoo on my back,” Joe added. “King of Propellers.”

“Hey, Dad, what do you think about letting Rose take classes with us?” Carrie suggested.

“Carrie!” Joe laughed. “That’s a terrible idea! Can you imagine what that would be like? ‘Ok, ElodieRSnickettsAlphaTango, we have a read on you. We need you to land at Air Strip 33.’ ‘I’ll land where I want! I’m going to land on the helicopter pad!’ ‘I’m afraid that’s impossi…’ ‘Shut up! I’m coming down!’”
“Yeah, the name of her jet would probably be Bing Bong Table.”
“She’d bring the cats. ‘Ok, Stinkerbelle, you’re in command!’ ‘Meow!’”

“You know…” Dad sort of strolled back into the living room. “The only kitchen cleaning I don’t do is dish washing cleaning.”

“Neither do I,” Carrie replied. “Someone else can do it. Linnea.”

“She did it last week,” I stepped in. “Have Francis do it.”

“Francis!”

“Hey!” Francis protested from the kitchen. “I washed dishes for Carrie all week long.”

“Francis, you did it one time,” Carrie called back to him. “And that was for five Francis training biscuits!”

[For those who are unaware, “Francis training biscuits” = chicken noodle soup flavored crackers.] So while Francis got busy doing the dirty work, Dad played Dodge-the-Nerf-darts-Joe-Throws in the living room while Linnea napped obliviously on the love seat.

We meandered around the yard with whatever creatures joined us – discussing the latest, swings and tug-of-war for The Bear and Puck, Snuggles jumped the ladder to the roof where he was joined by Joe, then Linnea. We’re a little less structured when Mom’s not around, I guess. But Francis was rock-climbing and Bufflo Wings-ing it with Gaston Bananas. Rose stormed in from work in plaid shirt and pearl earrings, halfway through dressing for church apparently decided to instead save the servers from exploding or something ridiculous like that. Dad and Joe drove off for pizzas. Mom and Grandma Combs completed the one big happy family with photographs and stories. Everything was “just wonderful”, of course. Puck got a t-shirt.

As Puck escorted Grandma to her car around five-thirty, Joe received a mysterious text message. Carrie snapped at it.

“No!” Joe demanded.

“Show me! You showed Rose!”

“She saw it on accident!”

“I’ve done way more for you than Rose has ever dreamed!”

“Yes I did! I bought him pizza at Philmont!”

“Let me see what she wrote!”

“No!”

“Show me!”

Carrie grabbed after Joe, who naturally took off laughing without half his shorts intact. Like he cared.

It was a four-girl huddle to wait out the results.

“Have fun unlocking it.”

“I know all passwords. Ok, here it says…”

Joe swiped it in a three-person brawl, running out of the room.

“No, no!” Carrie waved her hands to clear the guesses. “I will interpret all!”

After the discussions had ended, Carrie resumed her laptop…

“Do not look,” she commanded Rose. “Because there are Christmas present emails.”

Rose looked.

“Don’t!”

Carrie slapped her arm.

“Hey!”

She slapped back.

Mom took a seat on the floor, because [like all the Snicketts girls] hard wood doesn’t seem to bother her too much.

“Anyone else have any other things to report before I find out anyway? What did everyone do Saturday night?”

“We went over to Rose’s house for Jell-O,” said Carrie. “Then she asked if we wanted seconds.”