The Girl Who Shouldn't Operate Heavy Machinery
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Uncle Mo’s 50th birthday – he was probably trying to forget the fact that he was now 50 years old, despite the other fact that 50 just wasn’t considered to be that old any longer.
Meanwhile, over at the house, Collette had Rose pull out the books again. Rose’s first excuse of the day for not hopping to it, was:
“My eyebrows hurt!”
Collette did not ask why Rose’s eyebrows hurt. Some things were just better left unexplored, especially when it came to Rose-tales.
And during the middle of the day while Dad and Francis kept an eye on Puck, who was napping soundly, all five girls hit the road in the little red car to get a little shopping done in preparation for the upcoming weekend.
Collette realized, as she squished into the back seats with Carrie and Linnea, that she had never before taken a ride in a vehicle while Rose was behind the wheel. Well, if she had, she didn’t remember it. Although it was not likely she would forget; taking a ride with Rose was a memorable event.
No sooner had they reeled out of the driveway, but Rose headed toward the first intersection of the neighborhood and landed a stop half-way into the street.
“Good thing no one was coming,” Mom began.
Linnea tried to get out a deck of Go Fish to play with Collette on the way to the store, but the ride wasn’t exactly going smoothly enough to merit a good game of Go Fish without cards flying everywhere.
“Sometimes I like to let someone else drive me,” Carrie was saying. “I get an adrenaline rush from not being in control of the car.”
Rose had hit the first highway intersection with a screeching halt.
“That’s what Louis calls a ‘pop-your-eyes-out-stop’,” Carrie laughed.
Rose scowled while watching traffic. She then catapulted the vehicle out onto the road.
“Whoa! Rose!” Carrie yelled. “Watch out for that car!”
“He’s in the other lane!” Rose yelled back.
“Cars switch lanes all the time. Paint is not a barrier; it’s a suggestion, you know.”
“I’m scared,” Linnea said from between Carrie and Collette.
“You should be,” Rose told her, gripping the steering wheel as they zoomed down the highway at an alarming acceleration.
“Where’s the oxygen masks? I feel light-headed,” Carrie began putting on her iPod headphones to avoid focusing on the careening vehicle in which she found herself seated while Rose told the car next to her that it “had better not crash into (her) car”.
At the next stoplight, Rose hit the brakes again. They lurched with the wheels.
“Nice.” Mom laughed. “Hardly knew we stopped.”
Finally, the chaos was momentarily put on hold while everyone but Rose went into the department store to search for outfits to wear to the weddings that weekend. Collette decided, while looking around, that baby fat was a curse.
At the next store, Mom and Carrie left the other three in the car. And while Collette attempted her very best to instruct Rose in her mathematics, Rose did her very best to be distracted. The first distraction on the list involved arguing with Linnea over who could lick their elbow. Rose won that competition.
“Well, I can lick my tongue,” Linnea protested. “I mean, I can lick my nose. See?”
She pulled her tongue up to her nose.
“No, no, that doesn’t count,” Rose told her.
The next distraction called for ink pens which were used to draw smiling daisies and monsters on each others’ arms, legs, and soles of their feet.
“What’s that?” Rose pointed at two dark dots on the sole of Linnea’s foot.
“They’re blood blisters,” Linnea told her.
Tomboy.
“Here. Let me turn them into a face. I’ve had lots of experience.”
Linnea giggled and tried not to be tickled while Rose created her masterpiece.
By the time they all finally arrived home after thinking they would be nearly smashed by an oncoming UPS truck at the final highway intersection due to Rose’s lack of slowing down when approaching a stoplight-less intersection, they were all pleased to have called it a day.
Come late afternoon, Collette and Puck hit the road for home. Dad, Mom, and Joe prepared to leave for Joe’s senior banquet and talent show at The Columns, where Rose would be serving. Carrie tie-dyed a t-shirt in monarch colors and arranged to meet with Eve to purchase plane tickets for Australia and to watch the season finale of The Office with Elizabeth. And Francis and Linnea would eat pizza and try to stay out of their way.
Later in the evening, after OLeif returned, Kitts arrived with ingredients to mix up batches of delicious white chocolate and butterscotch cookies and white chocolate and cinnamon chip cookies.
Meanwhile, Diana was home. And she was to debut on Fox news that very evening regarding her latest piece. For once, Collette wished that they had cable.