Bug in the Ear
Friday, April 20, 2012
When Puck heard that he would be provided the opportunity to take a shower in lieu of a bath that day, now that he was five, he was not pleased.
“Mama, I never want to take a shower, not until I’m as old as Dad.”
“How old do you think I am?” OLeif asked.
“Three and a half,” Puck replied seriously.
“So… you mean… 35?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have to take a shower sometime,” Collette told him.
“Well,” Puck replied. “I know some adults who took baths the rest of their lives.”
Puck adjourned to the kitchen for “wildberries” [blackberries] with the ten-dollar bill from Grandma Snicketts in hand…
“This is… twenty thousand… three hundred bucks,” he announced.
OLeif emerged from his lair to hunt up some grub. He discussed his sermon on Jude while entertaining Puck with crazy monster faces and absent-mindedly rubbing the decommissioned microwave with a washcloth…
“Why are you polishing that, Dad?” Puck asked. “It’s dead.”
And at nine o’clock OLeif discovered that nearly two years after 99.1FM’s demise, Classical radio might be returning once again to St. Louis.
Cold and heavy-gray.
The mail lady had a green sucker for Puck “to match his shirt”.
“Where did you get these from?” Puck wanted to know, after he had escorted her mail truck around a large worm in the road.
Apparently she told him it was a “cowboy store”, according to Puck, because she had told him they sold cowboy boots there.
“You should get some,” she told Puck. “You look like a cowboy.”
OLeif took a breather after three…
“What do you want for dinner?” he asked Collette. “Name anything.”
“Air.”
OLeif drooped his head…
“That is a terrible dinner. But I can respect that… Cotton candy it is.”
On the way out for the evening, Puck complained about his right ear hurting. After a few mentions of this from the tough boy, Collette checked his ear as they arrived at the house.
Red.
Walgreen’s Clinic.
Carrie packed him off with a stack of quarters from the “Rainbow Chicken”.
Two very friendly ladies examined him. Everything great but for the ear.
Prescription filled.
Two punching balloons in blue and red for a dollar.
Back into the cold kicked-up gray.
Theodore got a fire crackling in the hearth as Gloria fried up meat and potatoes.
Collette caught the last 2/3rd of the game.
Puck hissy fit over the medicine, until OLeif coaxed it down, followed by mini corn dogs for dinner, prior to a very late 8:30 bedtime.
OLeif dropped Collette off at the house to stay the night, given that she would be accompanying the rest of the family on an eight o’clock departure to Kansas City the following morning for Uncle Fred’s funeral. Eight total hours on the road in one day wasn’t going to settle well with a Kindergartner. So Puck would remain at the Silverspoon’s, where OLeif would join them the next morning.
Mom and Dad had taken Linnea and Gretyl to the swing dance, (where Francis would also attend), followed by a date at El Maguey.
Carrie and Rose enjoyed Ladies Night with other women from church at Bissinger’s.
And Joe was apparently helping Aristotle change a tire.