The Gas Company
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Collette dreamt that the old Sparrow family had come to visit a city, perhaps Kansas City or Branson, to put on a juggling show, where OLeif, Collette, and Puck were visiting the MacDonald family from Monarch of the Glen in their refurbished, repainted castle. And all nine of the kids were there, all of whom Collette correctly guessed their names, except that two of their names seemed to have changed to ‘Garrett-Mac’ and ‘Hootin’-Tootin”.
Day number three at home in the cold.
Dad brought over the kids before nine.
Pretty much immediately….
Dad showed Puck how to play Taps on the old war bugle.
Francis changed the oil in the Ruckus. Perhaps his favorite toy.
Linnea was suffering from an unknown rash above her left eye.
Then Dad picked up Puck’s ukulele and showed him how to play it. That led to singing songs, and building a giant blanket fort and playing Big Bad Wolf.
Dad started singing songs…
I’m the big bad wolf.
I’m the big bad wolf.
I’m gonna eat some piggies.
I’m gonna eat some piggies.
I’m gonna eat some piggies.
What’s the piggie doing?
What’s the piggie doing?
The piggie’s coming.
He’s going to get eaten.
This is the end.
I’m gonna huff and puff.
I’m gonna eat some piggies.
When Collette emerged from the library, studies completed, sometime later, Dad was ringing the Chinese gong to act as the ‘huffing and puffing’…
“Are you blowed over yet?” he called to Puck, inside the tent.
“Nope!”
Puck insisted on playing with the counter mixer during his Quiet Hour, nowhere near an electric outlet, of course. What, exactly, he imagined the mixer to be, Collette wasn’t so certain…
Around two o’clock, Collette received a call from their next door neighbor.
“You need to call the gas company,” she said. “Your meter is leaking.”
Half an hour later, Ameren came out.
Three trucks later, and they found the problem. Collette could hear them laughing around her neighbor’s mailbox.
“It was my truck!” her neighbor called her, laughing. “I’m so sorry!”
Something about motor oil and four-wheel drive… It was pretty funny. And the four Ameren men got a break to stand outside in the cold and chat for about twenty minutes before going their separate ways.
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