They Never Grow Up
CRASH.
“Uh, Mom?…”
I looked into the living room where both boys hung in a guilty manner over the back of the couch, which they had pushed out from the wall.
“I think we just broke your lamp.”
Nothing breaking before eight o’clock in the morning is usually a pretty big accomplishment around here. At least the boys had waited a few hours. And it was only the bulb. Of course it was one of those bulbs that probably had mercury in it, and I didn’t realize it had cracked open until after I’d picked it up and walked through the contamination.
“Are you going to die, Mom?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, a little distracted.
“Well, if you’re gonna die, I guess there’s no party tonight for Uncle Francis.”
Puck walked into the kitchen, hunting cookies while I hunted up, “What to do if you break a bulb containing mercury.” Puck came back with two remaining cookies from the package.
“Have one of the two of them if you’re gonna die, Mom,” he offered.
So thoughtful to his mother in her final hour.
Turns out, I survived without much effort. It was two o’clock and our social worker had just arrived for our second post-adoption report while Yali obligingly put on a show by “shooting” her with a Lego gun he had just fashioned for the welcoming party.
Francis turning 21 on Monday called for an early celebration at the Big House, Grandma, Thumper, and one of Fran’s good buddies included. Everyone shared their favorite Francis-stories over plates of cheeseburgers, homemade macaroni and cheese, and salad – Francis’ requested menu.
“One of my favorites was when he was still a little kid in Scouts and he saw some accident going on with police and fire trucks,” Elmer was saying. “So he says something like, ‘Hey! I can earn a merit badge for this!’ And he just tears over there and some fireman has to hold him back from trying to help!”
Most of Francis’ tales, however, involved the police being called on him for things like shooting rubber ducks out of homemade cannons, exploding things in rock quarries, starting campfires down by the Daniel Boone Bridge, stopping trains with his iPhone, or shooting water balloons with a leaf blower onto cars on the bridge. How this kid hasn’t landed in the slammer yet, is beyond me… Probably all that Snicketts-boy charm. Certainly kept Dad out of serious trouble when he was a kid.