Clam Shack

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Another day of sun greeted Collette with a hearty bright glow. Collette was not cordial in return. She knew she always turned a cold shoulder to that “giver-of-life”, but somehow she could rarely abide to be pleasant to it.

At class the night before, Dad had them work through an HTML project, creating a restaurant menu from scratch. And while OLeif’s and Joe’s was relatively flawless (as OLeif already knew what he was doing), the girls’ team had some troubles. OLeif began offering suggestions.

“No! I don’t want his help!” Carrie announced, glaring blackly at him.

“Fine; be that way.” OLeif laughed back at her.

“OK, what’ll we serve, girls?”

Carrie tucked her knees up to her chin as she prepared to pound on the keyboard.

“We need an introduction,” said Collette.

“The Clam Shack – we fry everything.” Rose suggested.

“Even your mom,” Collette laughed, adding on.

It was a Stacie-joke, well overused and so unfunny, it was funny.

“Come celebrate Sinko duh mayo with us. It will be fun,” Carrie giggled, as she tacked all three together.

The piece was already coming out nice and sloppy. They added other menu items, like fresh clams, garden veggies, and “your mom” for the special of the day. And then there was fried fish and red bananas. Dad did his best to help, and diagrammed on the white board. Finally, though, he cut it off and compared the two pieces. There was no comparison.

“I don’t even want to see it,” Carrie blocked their screen with her hands.

But soon they were laughing over the boys’ creative menu:

• a radish I found on the road

• road-killed deer

• fried tongue of Rose

…with prices ranging from $19.95 to $2,000,000.03.

“Sorry, I ran a little short on that tab,” Carrie grunted, patting her stomach. “Those last three cents just got me.”

Dad seemed thoroughly amused at his class of ignoramuses.

Meanwhile, that Wednesday, aside from the usual, Carrie-Bri decided to take the afternoon off to spend a little time on herself. It was well-deserved after having worked so hard on getting programs and parties and projects together for people. She was to have her hair re-done, a tan, and go shopping with Stacie and Clover for graduation dresses.