Loot for the 17 Year-Old
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Another Sunday.
Collette ended up sleeping on the couch the night before; it seemed, at least, to be easier on her back.
“Dream of potatoes… and giraffes,” OLeif had called to her from the other room. “Of giraffes eating potatoes… in neckties.”
Later, Collette wondered if the giraffes or the potatoes were wearing the neckties. But in the end, it didn’t matter, because she failed to dream of any such nursery-rhyme-ish things. Instead, she dreamt of serious matters, of which she couldn’t remember anything concrete upon waking, as usual.
After church that morning, there were barbecue sandwiches at the Silverspoon’s in honor of Curly’s 17th birthday, a day early. Gifts had already been bestowed: a new guitar and a ticket to see Mark O’Connor at Webster University that night. Added to this was a paper bag of World Market miscellanies from OLeif and Collette: a French herb salami, hot German mustard, a whirly-gig pig on a stick (a musical instrument direct from Kenya), a handful of little pink pigs, and a case of Australian ginger beer.
Yes, Curly had struck it rich that year.
Theodore also showed them his gun, newly purchased. Collette held it for a few moments to find that it was quite heavy. She’d like to see herself even try to shoot it off when fully loaded, even when operated with both hands.
There was also cake that afternoon with a solitary candle, as there weren’t seventeen in the house. And after a movie, OLeif dropped off Collette at the house and picked up Joe to meet Bluebell South and Lolli, Wallace, Curly and Izzy at the South’s. They were all headed downtown for the concert.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Hansel and Gretyl were over in the backyard playing with Francis and Linnea before their parents arrived for small group. Inside, Carrie had just returned from work and was back to the books. Rose was preparing to be dropped off at youth. Mom and Dad were discussing the trouble of Easter eggs in the back lawn from the week before.
“Well, it looks like the kids just opened up their Easter eggs, took out the candy, and threw them on the ground. There’s hundreds of them out there,” Dad was saying.
“Well, we’ll just have to have someone go out and pick them all up.”
“I already mowed over all of them.”
“Martin!”
“Well, Adel, I wasn’t going to stop the lawn mower every time I saw an egg on the ground.”
“You mowed over hundreds of Easter eggs?”
“Well, there’s probably about fifty or sixty of them out there.”
Mom was still stunned that Dad would have done such a thing.
“Well, they certainly won’t decompose during our lifetime,” she said.
But Dad told her to send out the boys to clean it up later.
The day ended for Collette with a slice of chocolate caramel cake and a viewing of Rick Steves in Bulgaria with Mom and Dad before OLeif returned to pick her up. And Francis had been giving roller coaster rides to Linnea and Hansel and Gretyl down in the basement on the disc of Rose’s old bamboo disc chair. Screams of delight continued for about half an hour during this episode as they took their turns being throw about and into the air.
And Carrie continued to punch out the papers at the keyboard and solve physics equations in the other room for the past five hours, with an apple and a glass of raspberry juice to keep her going. That was her schedule: every morning up at five for school, leave by seven-thirty for work to be screamed at by irate customers, return from work at five-thirty, continue study until eleven o’clock at night. And the weekends were also consumed with work at The Columns. Perhaps that was just the way the life of a grad student was meant to be… Australia was going to be a welcome relief.