Second Day
Monday, May 2, 2011
In which the start of an anticipated quiet week begins…
In good news, OLeif’s wallet had been found. In his suit pants. How they had gotten there… no one knew. He had not worn the suit pants out of the house, to the best of their knowledge, anytime in the recent past. Collette accused him of putting on an underground fashion show.
The Tornado sirens started up as usual at 9:00.
“Mama,” Puck said, walking seriously into the kitchen. “We’re in a Tornado morning.”
The day continued with an orange juice for Puck, a photographed thank you to his Auntie Pai for sending him an annual birthday card and generous check, a stack of Highlights, and making, as promised, a wallet cut out of a gray foam shelf liner roll, stuffed with old insurance cards. Puck was thrilled.
Some Little Bear in the basement for Puck at 11:30, wrapped up in the dark blue crocheted throw on the couch, where Collette found a small collection of barrettes and hair ties accumulated throughout past comedy nights from Rose’s head.
Collette advised Puck to keep his blanket off of the floor on account of the spiders.
“Well,” said Puck seriously, settling his rosy chubby face back against the couch, “the spiders thought it was cozy down here. But it was not. It was cold.”
The cupboards were looking quite bare by the dinner hour.
So there was a lunch of fried eggs and bacon, under the dull steel gray of a changeless sky.
The afternoon was little different.
Added only was further research, a walk, and the arrival of the mail in the cold of 53 degrees. And Puck wanted to know, three times over, about the day he was born. This included the fact that OLeif had bought a lawn mower for twenty dollars and mown the lawn an hour before Collette’s contractions started, and had not been able to shower before leaving for the hospital.
“And Daddy paid two cents for the lawn mower,” Puck attempted to repeat, several hours later. “Not two cents. Fooooour cents.”
“The distribution of wealth has begun! The IRS gave my refund to my brother.”
— Rose Snicketts