An Incident with the Can-Can
Monday, January 17, 2005
It was an unusual morning. OLeif was home to take Collette to her exam and the sunshine shone frightfully odd as he left to purchase a screwdriver before it was time to leave. Collette polished off her apple for breakfast and prepared herself for the examination within three hours.
The day before had been Rev. Hatch’s first sermon, and most everyone was there to hear it.
Rose looked particularly well that morning, as Carrie-Bri had advised her on what to wear. She had on her boots and a long jean skirt, which made her look even taller, with a powder blue sweater and high powder blue fur collar, making her look quite sophisticated, with the blue and crystal earrings from the wedding. She was sophisticated, that is, until she managed a rent at the front slit of the skirt, which was, in fact, Carrie-Bri’s.
“Oh no….” she moaned, sitting on the couch. “Carrie’s gonna kill me.” She examined the tear more closely. “I have no idea how it happened.” She thought a moment. “Maybe while I was doing the can-can.”
It had been an eventful afternoon. Upon Collete and OLeif crossing the bridge, high above the river that afternoon at about 1:45 on the way to Manchester for her exam, the right front tire had blown. Collette looked up from her books as the road suddenly seemed to have become quite bumpy. OLeif looked in his rear view mirror to see the hub cap go bouncing back down the highway.
“Try to make it across the bridge,” Collette urged him as the car began to lurch.
“Blast,” OLeif mumbled low as the car began to sputter.
Halfway across the bridge they rambled to nearly a halt, and with the lights flashing, they hobbled across to the other side. After heading out into the cold sunshine, a Modot operator pulled over and allowed the use of his cell phone. Mom and Joe were soon along, and five hours later, they were all back at the house, Collette having passed her examination with an “A”, OLeif and Joe having finally fixed the tire after much running about both cities, and Mom and Carrie-Bri having been very worried and recovered over the whereabouts of the three. Carrie was certain the police would be scraping OLeif’s and Joe’s remains off the highway with spatulas in the process of fixing the tire.
“I thought Joe would do something stupid,” she tried to explain, “and that I’d see a picture of him dancing in the middle of the highway or something, on the ten o’clock news.”
They laughed as they gathered for “dime pizzas” in the kitchen. Joe’s eyes grew wide with laughing as his braces glinted and he mischievously waved his arms in the air.
“Yeah – that’s what I did. I ran out right into the middle of the highway and did a dance. La la la la.”
Carrie-Bri rolled her eyes, but thought the matter was quite funny upon recalling her concern.
“I was so worried. I heard a helicopter fly over the house, and I knew it wasn’t the news helicopter because I memorize the flight patterns of airplanes and stuff, and it would have been an hour early. So I thought they were coming to scrape you off the highway.” She went on. “And then Dad,” she turned accusingly at him, “when he went off to check up on them and see if they got the car fixed… I called him on the cell phone, and he was like, ‘Oh – gotta go. There’s a police car on the scene.’ So I thought they were all dead, and had been hit.”
“I just said there was a police car there,” Dad’s smile lines had got the better of him as he laughed at Carrie’s silly recap.
“Well, you said – ‘a scene.’” Carrie insisted with wide eyes and a trying-not-to-laugh face. “You know – scene… accident.”
And it all managed to end with several Walton episodes, while Collette did her two-mile march… this time with a can of beets in each hands for weights. Linnea took two smaller versions of mandarin oranges. Another eventful day.