Chapter Twenty-Four
I was in Korea, all the family. At some point, between being gifted a variety of flowers and fruits, we had been invited to join a local church during our visit. There, I assisted a grandfather and his grandson with the grandson’s mathematics textbook. The first word problem I examined included the words – St. Louis.
“Alright! St. Louis!” I mini-cheered.
Carrie, sitting across from the room, just grinned and rolled her eyes at me.
In the reality of my morning, Puck had a Star Wars tattoo on his left arm from Wednesday evening. He wanted it pasted on earlier, but I told him to wait so it would be fresh for Kirk to see it at church last night. Which was his original plan. Star Wars and Legos. Even though Puck doesn’t know anything about Star Wars, he understands what people like. He’s always saving tidbits for everyone. Maybe mostly for his “baby brother in Colombia”. [Incidentally, I learned that Puck regularly requests prayer for his baby brother during Wednesday night sessions, which the Children’s Director has now shortened to “bro in Co”.] So the tattoo complimented nicely the “Crash Pro” penned on his right hand by Joe, after his bloody tooth incident on Tuesday. I texted Franics…
“How’s the old ticker?”
To which he replied…
“Tickin.”
I knew that Linnea was at the dentist that morning, after she and Mom had dropped Carrie-Bri off at work. I think the only reason she could actually force herself to even think about getting into the dentist’s chair was because that rotting old baby tooth had finally fallen out.
“I have two loose teeth!” Puck had bellowed back to her after this news.
Really, the volume…
“Want me to pull them out?” was of course Dad’s immediate suggestion.
“No…?”
I was surprised he was almost hesitant. Maybe the idea is starting to grow on him. Man, if I found every day as exciting as Puck – which I’m trying to relearn… sitting in the old desk chair for school, feeling like he’s a big shot school kid, wriggling apart Legos into new and interesting machines and worlds, snacking on corn chips, listening to history novels… The kid is living it. He walked out from Quiet Hour without his pants. Apparently he had forgotten them in the bathroom where he had dug the empty root killer bottle out of the trash.
“Could I please have this?!”
This is the life of my son. I ditched his keeping-the-poisonous-bottle idea, however. He was fine to give that up, though. There’s always new ideas around the corner, and library books with slices of fresh tomato.
We were invited to a spontaneous turned-out-to-be-movie-night at Mom’s and Dad’s that evening. It was bitter cold and Puck was excited. He wanted to stand on the driveway waiting for Mom and Carrie to arrive, but I had to pull him back in. So much for my earlier idea of walking to the library. It was still gray.
“Looks like we’ll be getting ice pellets tomorrow,” Mom was saying.
Carrie was driving…
“I didn’t even know that was a real meteorological term,” she scoffed.
“What are ice pellets?” Puck wanted to know.
“It’s like baby hail,” Carrie answered.
“Huh. How big is the biggest hail you’ve seen?”
“As big as a grapefruit. It could really hurt you.”
“Yeah, but. I’m pretty tough,” Puck replied nonchalantly. “I face-landed the other day. Did you know that?”
Carrie tried to hide the laugh…
“I know you did. I was there.”
Carrie slapped together a make-the-kitchen-a-batter-mess dinner. Rose was on her way out. Dad was back. And all we were missing was The Bear, who would be busy with the – what I sometimes envision as London’s 19th century gentleman’s club – downtown. And Francis, busy recruiting young scouts for his project on Saturday. So there were waffles…
“Francis! Why didn’t you eat your waffles?!”
“They… uh… tasted healthy.”
Stewed sweet apples. Omelets. Himalayan pink salt on the counter. Egg shells. Carved ham. Stories of Francis taking an incredibly long time to change into his gown at the hospital because he couldn’t figure out how to put it on. Even his youth leader had to weigh in on the conversation…
“We eventually figured out he was trying to put his head inside the sleeve.”
Dad was actually bursting with laughter. I guess we all thought it was pretty funny, too, that they had to give him more anesthesia to get him to stop talking. Then Dad stared down Rose, who had filled her dinner plate to overflow.
“Rose, you are not going to eat all that food.”
“Yes I am!”
“Scoot your plate closer to you. That gap’s making me nervous.”
We finished off the night with “Napoleon Dynamite.”