Ch. 201; Vol. 10
“Puck? Did you eat your banana?”
A blonde head popped around the corner of The Bear’s library…
“Uhm… I didn’t eat the banana, Mom, because it had a black line in it, and I don’t like black lines.”
Gloria peddled Saturday relaxations…
“thin crust pizza… strawberries/blueberries… play in the sprinkler…”
A deal was struck for sometime after noon.
Puck was mildly upset. Two arms wrapped around a box stuffed with old bills and check stubs which he had somehow pulled up from the basement…
“I WANT TO SHRED IT!”
“No, son,” The Bear told him again. “Maybe one day.”
“DAD! That one day isn’t until THE END OF THE WORLD!!!! ONE DAYS ARE UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD!!!”
“That’s not true.”
Puck tried a different approach…
“Do you want spiders to make nests in here, DAD?”
That was a Collette tactic if I ever heard one.
After being deposited in his room for awhile to calm down and repent of his ways, I asked if he had finished contemplating his sins…
“I fink I funk fings long enough!”
– Loses a bit of that threatening edge… –
“There’s no way I can comp-tem-plate my sins! I fink nuffing every day!”
See, it’s that inability to say the “th” sound that doesn’t help his case so much…
Making beer on Gloria’s countertop, because “beer” is “root beer” and “root beer” is good even if he’s never had one…
…in Puck’s world.
Glasses, bottles, bowls, and food coloring = root beer.
Gloria was at the office painting walls a brightish carmel-ly color, so she didn’t see the dishes of multi-colored juice displayed in her kitchen, which Puck tried to make his uncle guzzle. But they cleaned up anyway before Puck and I spent two hours in the hot sun, lawn sprinkler, and the rumble of thunder…
“You look like summer,” I informed Puck.
Striped muscle man shirt, pixeled swim shorts bought during Curly’s and Lulu’s wedding weekend, strawberry juice stains, blue food coloring fingers, macaroni and cheese band-aid, 1980’s sunglasses from Magnus’ wedding, socks… a little rain…
He flashed past carrying Snickers to “take a bath”. That didn’t last long.
A little more rain…
Puck stacked bricks on the porch, waiting out the rumbles…
“This is the interesting art I ever made,” he announced.
[Always leaves out that “most”…]
Gloria walked in the door before five, paint-splotched…
“Bandana’s alright, Papa? I said I’d buy.”
“You’d buy?”
So we went – barbecue, garlic bread, chicken tenders, lemonade, etc.
“Hey, we get to celebrate your birthdays after all,” Gloria teased the boys. “Wait, no, this is my reward for painting the office today. We’ll hold out for your birthdays later.”
Another classic down-for-the-night. Too many questions, never enough time. Not like Thursday though, I guess…
“How many Londons are in this world, Mom?”
“Is there more than one St. Louis?”
“Are snakes afraid of people?”
I can handle that.
