Dr. Cesspool

When Puck came out of the gym that afternoon, he threw off his sweater to expose his green polo. I advised him to put on his coat before hitting the playground.

“Mom! I am FREEZING hot!”

There was a delay getting outside anyway because Puck had raided the cardboard bin for a makeshift book cover for his new comic strip…

“It’s time for another bloody good episode of… DR. CESSPOOL”

…with the attached disclaimer:

“It’s not really bloody if you’re wondering. Ages 8 and up.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. It’s not real blood. And I got the idea of Dr. Cesspool from someone else but I’m writing a story about him.”

I just hoped it wasn’t a real cesspool. In fact, I was pretty sure he didn’t even know what a cesspool was.

After he cleared the shreds of cardboard from all over the carpeted school hallway, we made our exit.

Puck was inspired enough by “Dr. Cesspool” that evening to take up the kitchen table for about an hour of intense cartooning. He finished the entire comic book by eight o’clock and began printing copies “to sell for one dollar”. When Rose arrived, she snapped a few “illegal copies” on her phone for posterity’s sake, after we had laughed pretty hard through the whole episode which was surprisingly funny. All those years of “Calvin & Hobbes” have paid off, I guess.

“Want to buy one?” Puck asked Rose.

“Sure. But can I pay you Sunday?”

“Yes. I will bring a copy to you on Sunday.”

No loans from this one.

Then we holed up in our cold basement for another movie night while Puck continued printing and stapling copies upstairs.

Francis opened the lid of a tupperware of sausages Carrie-Bri had brought from home. He suspiciously hunted around the contents to weed out anything too healthy.

“Why are these peppers sweet?” he asked after awhile.

“It’s your imagination, Francis.”

“My imagination doesn’t work that way.”

In the end, the onions were the only man left standing.