Put Your Fingers on the Scanner
Thursday, December 15, 2011
In which prints are taken yet again…
On the wet streets of the city, the little family of Silverspoon arrived at USCIS to be finger-printed for the fourth time as the adoption continued into the fourth month of its third year.
Upon arriving at the metal detector, OLeif had forgotten the fork protruding from his shirt pocket. Collette had slipped it there earlier as a reminder to add it to the cafeteria at work from which it had originally been borrowed…
“Come on through, young man,” they said to Puck.
“Come on through, young lady,” to Collette.
OLeif’s turn…
“Why do you have a fork?” one of the three guards asked him.
OLeif went to dispose of the object outside…
“Thought I was going to try to blow up the place or something,” OLeif said later.
A short wait later in the lobby and…
“Colombia,” Collette replied when asked by the clerk.
“Hmmm… don’t get many of those… A lot of South Korea and Ethiopia lately. But not Colombia.”
Surprising…
On the way back to return OLeif to work, he and Puck envisioned living in a tree house, where the oven would be “at the end”, the bed “by the oven” on a heavy branch, and all of the toys “at the top”.
Back on the ranch…
Dad was preparing for a lunch appointment at Bristol’s in Creve Coeur.
Francis was at work for another six-hour shift, one of his last 30+ hour weeks before shifting back to real part-time hours in January.
Mom and Carrie-Bri were departing for last-attempts Christmas shopping.
Linnea reported on the Church Youth Ugly Sweater Contest White Elephant Christmas Party from the previous evening. Her Victoria’s-Secret-gift-wrapped Japanese soda and chocolate rocks were a big hit. They went to the kid who ‘walks around with glow sticks all the time’. And two of the girls from the party had come down with whooping cough.
Not long later when the UPS lady arrived at the door, Puck ran out and shouted…
“Thank you, UPS man!”
Fortunately, she had laughed.
Into the afternoon…
Mom and Carrie returned with a monster-sized Persian-styled cat bed for Kahlila Aftab, the feline who apparently enjoyed head-butting Rose at two o’clock in the morning.
Joe came in for a drop-by before returning to the Pepper’s to look after the dogs.
Mathematics curriculum introduction with Linnea, after which she was off to Barnes & Noble to wrap gifts for a volleyball fundraiser.
Puck had found the red 80’s lint brush.
And for Collette, it was back to records and writings.
Into the night…
Puck retrieved the Ligonier Christmas card from the stack of mail.
“Wasn’t it nice of Mr. Sproul to sent me this note?” he asked, indicating the still unopened envelope on the table. “I’m not gonna open it for a hundred years. I will not ever open it.”