Puck Collects

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Five o’clock again, and up.
The day was already dark gray banding up beneath a pale sunrise.

Pork chops were prepared prior to lunch in the standard Worcestershire sauce and paprika.
Collette read further rounds to the young chap as he somehow, without her noticing, snuck a hitchhiker up his nose…
“Help! Mama!”
She unjammed the large round glass bead, and all was well.

Collette walked back to Puck’s room to find him barefoot in the cool afternoon, holding his red piggy bank up to one eye, staring through the slot…
“Wow. I have twenty… one-fourteen money in there, don’t I?” he asked with a grin.
The mail included a shoal of coupons. Puck’s collector’s delight. He distributed them according to the interest of his extended family members, including Culver’s for “Grandpa”, KFC for “Grandma”, and Steak ‘n Shake for Francis. The insert for bank checks was actually somewhat helpful, given that they were now cheaper than ordering them from the bank, including patterns for “Tuscan Spice”, “Bonnie Scotland”, and “Hershey’s Best”. And a leaflet for his mama from Aldi advertising Fish and Fiesta specials: Mexican corn, burrito tortillas, tilapia, tomatoes, oranges, and the signature 39-cent avocados. Puck saved the coupons for shoes and furniture for himself.
“For when I marry Anneliese,” he said, with full conviction.

OLeif returned in the graying evening, windows lit up and opened to the cool breezes, though the rain had been removed from the forecast for Wednesday, which was set for 67.
“Guess who’s home?” Collette told Puck.
Puck, who was sporting a gray cloth headband, 1980’s work-out style, replied in monotone…
“My best friend, Daddy.”

OLeif continued the evening with further preparation for his very first April 3rd sermon in the library through which Collette had been sorting Puck’s mountain of collectables which she had been stashing aside to organize, an enormity something akin to Howl’s Moving Castle.