Ch. 235; Vol. 10
I walked out of my room that morning; Puck was already reading books on the couch…
“Hi, my sweet chub chub.”
“Yeah, but Mom?”
– This was promising. –
“You know that wood horse they brought into the city with people inside?”
– He held up a library book: The Trojan Horse. –
“How did they get it inside the city?”
“They rolled it in, I think…”
“Oh yeah. Because they didn’t have mechanical ‘chines back then, right?”
Assuming that ‘chines could only represent “machines”, I was unable to make a full analysis, because Puck was already forging ahead to more ideas…
“But, Mom! Didn’t they see these doors there? Didn’t they know that someone would be in there?”
“I guess they camouflaged the doors?”
“Why are they using rope to come down, Mom? Wouldn’t that hurt their hands?”
Puck was obviously more concerned about the ancient Greeks than I was capable of addressing before eight o’clock that morning.
“But why didn’t they used the doors instead of coming out this way?”
“Yeah… I’m not sure they thought everything through…”
In the Snicketts house, an Eagle Scout Ceremony might as well be a wedding, for all you’d think. I guess it’s a pretty big deal. Especially when the Scout in question obtains the reward by the skin of his teeth. A.k.a. days before his 18th birthday.
Hence Bær working from home, and mid-day showers.
Puck walked out of his shower to Bær’s library, hair spiked straight up and still wet…
“Hey, Dad, could you take a break now so we can build that treehouse?”
But there were more important things to fix instead, like the whole roll of toilet paper that Puck somehow soaked with shower water.
“Can I keep this, Mom?”
“No, bud.”
“But it’s too moggy to put on someone’s bum, Mom.”
Moggy.
On this appropriate note, we left for Francis’ Eagle Scout Ceremony. Entirely appropriate for anything Boy Scout, actually.
Fifty or more guests watched Francis become an Eagle at the park that evening, a warm evening near the pond and horse stables.
Befitting landscape. Including three escorts in Joe, Charlie, and Izzy. [German was out of town.]
Francis called me up at the end for a shiny gold mentor pin, too, as his official “secretary”. Good old chap.
“Hey, you should have given me one of those, too,” Carrie prodded him later. “For calling you a lazy bum all the time.”
Francis just grinned.
Rose snickering during all the accolades by Francis’ leaders. A sisters’ prerogative.
He had concluded the ceremony by thanking Mom for putting the whole thing together and Dad, “for funding it”.
Chocolate Costco cake, plates of cookies done up by our force-of-nature baker lady at church [as Judah calls her], and a mini family reunion with all the aunts and uncles, Blessing, and Grandma Combs, bringing games and snacks for Puck of course.
We take family seriously around here.
Made better by the fact that Grandma Snicketts was recovering so well that she might be released to rehab on Saturday. Another reason to celebrate.
While Puck changed into his jams at around 9:10, he once again found that “moggy” roll of toilet paper drying out in the bathroom…
“Please, Mom?”
“No, bud.”
“But it’s too squishy to use on bums, Mom.”
I think I’m almost definitely looking at a future Boy Scout.
