Election Day
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
7:10am saw OLeif and Collette at the polls with good old-fashioned pen, paper, and bubble-in multiple choice. Collette almost enjoyed the fact that voting methods could still be so primitive. So not everything changed so drastically in two hundred years.
At the house, Carrie took off for a full day of work – two shifts. And Mom, Frances, and Linnea attended Powell Hall for the annual young peoples’ concert, the very same that the English family and Snicketts family had always attended.
In those old days at Powell Hall, Diana and Collette pretended they were queens and that Powell Hall was their palace – the red velvet seats, the great crystal chandeliers, the many uncharted passageways that wove behind the stage… There also, Bing, Carrie, and Eve were known to have linked arms coming out the front doors singing Carrie’s latest hit – Boghole Worms – all the way to the waiting van.
Meanwhile, Rose tried listening to the Beach Boys during her practice literature exam that morning, before Collette caught her doing it. Joe was listening to choir tapes after a plate of waffles; the shrill voice of Mrs. South rang up from the basement. It sounded more like Joe was listening to a soprano tape.
Before leaving for choir, he went through the house loudly singing How Many Toes Does a Fish Have?
When Mom and the kids returned from downtown, Frances and Linnea could not agree on what color hair the young conductor had. Frances said blond. Linnea said gray.
In the gray of the afternoon, while the three middle kids were at choir, Mom, Collette, and Linnea ran some errands, which included a stop at Three French Hens in Manchester (after driving an hour trying to locate it) where Mom was given a complimentary cup of cappuccino while they browsed. Collette dug a thick little glass into a wooden trough of rosehips and smelled them – just like Christmas.
“Collette, come feel this bird head!” Linnea called to her from another room, munching on a cup of complimentary animal crackers. “It’s so soft!”
Linnea had been on the lookout for unusual things, and the stuffed bird in mid-flight did, indeed, have the thickest softest white neck of feathers Collette had ever felt.
“Can I take a feather?” Linnea asked.
“No! You can’t take a feather,” Mom said quickly, just in case Linnea might try to pluck one.
Linnea grinned.
Followed – Trader Joe’s where there were always good things to find. And then Mom dropped by Chesterfield Mall to pick up Grandma Snicketts’ new Bible for her birthday, a book of 10,000 names and their meanings, and a soft pretzel apiece for Collette and Linnea.
Back on the ranch, Rose had returned from choir, and talked about Mormonism with Collette over soft Brie and crackers, as the remaining psychology studies rather went by the wayside (much to Rose’s relief).
Meanwhile, elections brought about the passing of Amendment 2, which had been Missouri’s kettle of fish for the past months. Collette knew that in all likelihood that coming Sunday, various pastors across the state would be preaching condemnation and doom for all of America, as a result.