Critters, Arise
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Puck walked determinedly into breakfast, fringed red cowboy vest strapped over astronaut t-shirt, plaid blue shorts, and band-aids wrapped around several toes.
“Mama, I’m not going to be as bad as yesterday,” he said thoughtfully, taking a bite of buttered toast. “Yesterday, I was as bad as a pirate.”
He peeled off one of the band-aids on his foot with little ceremony…
“You want to add this band-aid to your band-aid collection?”
“I don’t have a band-aid collection, bud.”
“You want to start collecting band-aids? That came from other people? And they’re… blood? And it looks real strange? You could start collecting real band-aids. You should. Alright? Alright? You should start collecting band-aids.”
When Puck was inspired… He ran into his room for a wood box and returned to the kitchen to organize the band-aids…
“Mama, you want to see my two band-aids? I’m going to trick the children.”
“Why would you trick the children?”
“Because they’re going to see the band-aids and say, ‘Blood! Blood!’ And I’m going to say, ‘It’s marker’… Because blood does look red.”
Collette and Puck adjourned to recreational reading following the morning’s studies; this included interesting facts about Thomas Jefferson – the quiet one who rarely said “three sentences together” when out in public – and John Adams – the boisterous one, two best friends. Unlike some presidents, apparently, who wanted to make each other ambassadors to the North Pole, “had the backbone of a chocolate eclair”, or the handshake of a “wilted petunia”. “Fricaseed frog” eating Tom, who bought corsets for John’s daughter, and “His Rotundity” mad wig-stomping John, enjoyed their own hobbies: collecting three hundred “dusty mammoth bones” in the White House, reading his collection of 6,707 books, riding his horse Old Eagle, playing the violin, and organizing snowball fights for his twelve grandchildren, or reading his 3,200 books in his Massachusetts farmhouse and serving pudding to his fourteen grandchildren, respectively. They died within hours of one another on Independence Day, America’s 50th anniversary, during a thunderstorm.
OLeif checked in before eleven to catch up with Puck.
“You got a new car?” Puck repeated excitedly. “Is it a limousine?”
With the Cards lined up against the Astros that afternoon, and a wave of green on the radar just past Kansas City, Collette slathered up a peanut butter waffle for Puck.
The afternoon ruffled up the blossoms.
The sky was patched.
Dead garden snake in the road.
Shivers.
Puck wasn’t exactly being as “bad as a pirate”, but he also wasn’t exactly a saint.
“Mama,” he whined, when hearing about subsequent punishments, “pleeeease give me grace!”
Puck was plunked into the tub. He began arranging his rubber duck collection, fixing them up with head gear.
“His eyes look stupendous,” Puck explained, nodding towards the smallest duck wearing a bubble bath bottle cap. “That’s why he’s wearing that hat.”
At dinner, Puck watched a bunny hop by, munching on blades of sweet green grass past dawdling black birds. Puck asked for his spyglass…
“I want to spy on that bunny,” he said, with conviction.
Then a squirrel.
Collette was continuously disposing of ants; this time, they had even ventured into the hallway and Puck’s room.
This meant spiders would be on the prowl soon too.
Brown recluses…
Shivers.
Too many critters.
OLeif returned at 7:00, after dropping by the dealer again for matters of title, expense, etc., with Joe, who had arrived to test out the Mazda 3 and pick up his Fit, which he had loaned them the last two days, and told Puck that the new car was “as fast as a rocket ship”. When OLeif showed an excited Puck the new keys, he exclaimed…
“That’s keen!”
Back inside…
“I’ve been spying on a bunny lately, Dad.”
As Collette flipped on a little more baseball via iTunes, OLeif sat beside her on the couch and read further assignments for the week as they shared a couple of grilled cheese.
“Wars should be determined by baseball,” said OLeif after awhile. “Elections. Political parties should have a showdown match of skill.”