How to Forget You're Sick

Sunday, March 4, 2012

If Collette had still been in high school, she would have stayed in bed.
But Sunday morning called loudly.
“Mama,” Puck announced over his oatmeal. “It’s one thousand fourteen minutes till the aliens pick us up.”
Collette was too fatigued to ask him about this statement.

During Sunday School, Collette caught up on the weekend with Mom (in her fuchsia pink wrap), OLeif chatted with the fellas, and Puck helped “clean up the temple” of all scrap paper and bulletins with the other pre-Ks. He raced into the foyer for the two recycling baskets and landed on the floor of the sanctuary.
“Put all of the paper in here!” he announced loudly.
Anneliese, in paisley pink, green, and blue tunic, followed closely behind.

On the drive home from church, Collette suddenly realized that it was very possible she had taken with the flu the past two and a half days. Fortunately, she had stayed away from everyone at church. Carrie wasn’t feeling well either.
“Shivering one moment, sweating the next,” she was saying. “It’s like we’ve assimilated the local weather into our bodies. We’ve caught the St. Louis disease.”
It was lightly snowing outside.
Yet as Carrie still held the position of resident chef, Dad ordered in Little Caesar’s to cover for her during the lunch hour.
As everyone conferenced in the living room, Francis departed for the pizzas…
“Why are you here?” he asked Rose.
“To punch you,” she replied with a smug grin.
Carrie was busy chewing on two stalks of lettuce. According to her research, one Roman emperor had apparently so lauded the health qualities of lettuce that he had erected a statue to the glory of the green leaf.
“Hi, Rose,” Mom greeted her, coming over to give her a kiss on the cheek.
Rose returned the favor.
“You’ve been eating ok?”
“Yup. I’ve been eating ice cream. That’s my fattener.”
Joe was bullying Dad in the living room, throwing out some punches as he explained about Pooch’s house.
“I didn’t know he moved in yet,” OLeif was saying.
“Oh. He moved into it. There’s a hammock in the kitchen. And he has asbestos all over the house. Look!”
He had propped his feet onto two of Puck’s small wood blocks, apiece.
“…Chinese flip-flops.”
“I want a bathtub as big as a house,” Carrie was saying.
Joe turned his ankles the wrong way, somehow still standing up straight.
“That’s disgusting,” Dad noted, before walking by shortly later and dumping Joe out of his chair.
“It’s a good thing Dad got rid of all the phones,” Rose said suddenly. “’Cause I ran one of them through the washing machine by accident.”

During lunch, the idea of Puck’s cheek-pinching business was resurrected.
“Or you could have Puck tap-dance on the sidewalk,” Mom suggested. “Then have Earnest hold a bucket in his mouth to collect the money.”
“Earnest would eat the bucket, Mom,” Carrie replied.
“We should sell stuff,” said Puck seriously, ordering his hands like he was directing an orchestra.
“What stuff should we sell?” Carrie asked.
“Some nice furniture… and a nice dish…”
“But how would we get the nice dish?”
“We would buy it.”
“But we have no money to buy it.”
“Well… you could just borrow it from Grandma.”
Then Puck suggested putting a bucket around Earnest’s neck instead to collect the money…
“But not too heavy, because bunnies don’t have so much strength.”
“We could put a sign next to him,” Mom suggested. “’Will hop for food’.”
“No, Grandma,” Puck giggled. “’Will hop for money.’”
Then Rose said something about…
“Joe? Can Wally blow air out of his eyes?”
“WHAT?”
“Just find out if he can.”
Puck had momentarily excused himself. When Collette called him back to the table, he was busy petting Snuggles…
“I will come, Mama. But Snuggles hasn’t finished purring me yet. He’s still purring. I have to pet him.”

As Mom and Dad took their Sunday siesta, the girls began examining Snuggles for the odious fleas.
“You’re humiliating him,” Rose said almost gleefully.
…during which Rose and Linnea argued over who Snuggles loved the most.
“Snuggles tap-danced on the couch to tell us he wanted to stay here,” Rose explained next to Puck. “He tap-danced, and then he turned in a circle, stood on his head, and then took a nap for one hour.”
Puck was so intrigued by this thought that he wasn’t satisfied until he had imitated the entire dance himself on the couch.
Several times.
Rose then described the disgraceful behavior of eight of her nine dinner companions the previous evening at a Thai pizza restaurant.
“I was so mad at all their ridiculous complaining that I tipped the waiter ten dollars,” she said adamantly.

When Mom woke from her nap, she employed Puck with a set of bug sponge popping capsules, which, when soaked in warm water, exploded into hand-sized brightly colored spongy insects.
“They’re sponges and they’ll stay that way forever!” Puck crowed to Joe.
“Whoa. Get right out of town!” Joe replied.
The whole of them were gathered in the living room in the later afternoon. Francis and Puck were on the floor watching Tom and Jerry Tales as Francis enjoyed a moderate glass of vanilla ice cream dredged in cow’s milk. Francis began lightly pummeling Puck.
“Francis!” Mom exclaimed.
“It’s ok,” Puck replied seriously. “I can handle punching.”
Plans were discussed for the next couple of weeks, involving a number of Joe’s buddies in town for spring break, the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dogtown, and a week of Cherry coming into town. Rose was to escort the young ladies about the city for part of the time.
“I’ll just get off work early,” she explained. “All I have to do is say ‘snow’ to my co-workers in California. That’s all it takes. Some of them have never even seen snow before.”
Dad sat in a circle of all the ladies…
“Don’t we have a bunch of pretty girls, Mama?” he asked. “Including that one over there,” he nodded towards her.
“Dad,” Carrie said slyly. “I’m not baking you any more cookies today.”
Dad just protested, laughing.

Collette spilled white-out all over herself, her calendar, and the floor just before dinner. Rose advised nail polish remover, which she rubbed vigorously over the floor while Collette attended to her sweater. It worked well.
“I found out it worked when I used to paint my nails with white-out in high school,” the economic Rose explained.

“So, Puck. Do you like ice cream and magic chocolate?”
– Carrie was trying to entice Puck to finish the spicy fish with cold dill sauce housed beside the sweet potato casserole and garlic toast on his plate. –
“Because I’m making Dilly bars for dessert.”
– She almost immediately caught a grin on Dad’s face. –
“Dad? Dad, you didn’t. I hid the chocolate chips behind the protein shakes.”
“Well I found them,” Dad giggled.
Fortunately, enough had been saved.

Joe had already taken off to shop with Pooch.
Rose had Bible study, toting off her clean laundry in the light rain.
The ‘Man with the Bow Ties’ was being ordained at church that evening. So half of the core Snicketts family would be attending. This did not include the three Silverspoons, as Collette was ill and OLeif (after four hours of studies) and Puck were tired.
They dropped by Aldi on the way home for breakfast eggs.
A relaxing evening at home in the rain.