Cardboard & Typhoid

When the new washer and dryer arrived at the Big House sometime earlier that year, Dad had generously donated the heavy cardboard packing boxes to Puck, suggesting he use them as spaceships.

They were now on their second round of use, back in the living room, a cardboard village. Because Puck had made additions that week. I’m not sure if they were genuine spaceships, but they were definitely serving the purpose of creativity and imagination. Puck carefully handed me the carving knife from time to time to hack out additional crawl space. Nothing cuts cardboard like a somewhat dulled member of kitchen cutlery.

Earlier that morning, Puck had reluctantly joined me in the Fit through an already hot day to the Walgreen’s off 370, one of the few places in the area that could easily provide typhoid vaccination before our departure. I was interested to learn that, while the injections were not in stock, tablets were. We would begin our first dose that evening.

Back home, Puck buried himself inside against the heat by dousing random items in pools of water at both sinks, including an expired cell phone, pausing to craft a flying saucer out of junk bits from the catch-all drawer in the kitchen, one of his favorite places in the house: possibilities are endless.

Then he joined me in the basement for a couple of innings and a bowl of juicy strawberries before walking over to Eddie’s house for some summertime fun. Indoors. The heat index was already at 100.

Puck forked down a bowl of chickpea pasta for dinner – about a half-box worth – in record-breaking time. Busy, hungry man; needed some major protein. Then back outside with the cardboard village, which he and Eddie temporarily transported to Eddie’s backyard for the evening.

At 7:30, Puck and I returned the various buildings in collapsed form via two separate shifts to our living room. Renovations would continue another day; Puck had more plans. Real-life Minecraft at its best.

Oxbear returned with our Walgreen’s prescription of typhoid immunization tablets. Four doses apiece over a week. Interesting way to do it, I guess. In the fridge they went.

Meanwhile, we hit the basement for a late viewing of a recently released Colin Firth movie that somehow turned out to be so horrible, we shut it off half an hour in.