Trade Acquisition

5 a.m. – awake. Puck’s and my early start was due to Grandma’s recent hit-and-run totaled car earlier in the month. Carrie and I were driving her out two and a half hours to the bubbling metropolis of Morton, Illinois for her ’09 Honda Fit, a recent trade acquisition from a professor at Texas A&M.

This meant Puck got to spend a day with Mom, Francis, and Linnea in various intervals between Mom’s birthday Chinese lunch with Gloria and Mrs. English, Francis’ classes and work, and Linnea going to the movies that evening.

After picking up Grandma in Florissant, our little road trip included a stop for McDonald’s – it had been awhile – and only one scene of intrigue to mar the everlasting roll of Illinois farmland: a sprawling wind farm. Something ominous and beautiful about that quixotic scene.

Morton, I will admit, was larger than we expected. All those Illinois stereotypes we collect. Sam, the sales rep, quickly showed us the silver vehicle parked and running on the lot. Carrie took us for a spin to a nearby mechanic.

While we sat in the wedge of a waiting room, Francis texted Carrie:

“Puck wants McDonald’s for lunch.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet Puck wants McDonald’s for lunch,” she scoffed.

After the papers were signed, Grandma had named her car “Caliente”, had inquired into the life story of Sam while examining his war medals from Iraq, and bragged to him about her granddaughters being a pilot and a writer, we hit up Ruby Tuesday’s where Carrie and I split an appetizers platter of fried cheese, spring rolls, chicken fingers, and wings.

In the cutting, frigid Illinois wind, we drove back. This time I took the wheel of the Fit and heard more stories of Grandma’s childhood: camping in a world before plastics.

We finally got back to the Big House somewhere around 5:30 to pick up my wound-up son and a liter of POM pomegranate juice.

Then… David Freese was traded to the Angels, and the FAA messed up Carrie’s paperwork – again. But the final straw for Carrie was Dad eating the very last Krispy Kreme donut.

So…

Puck turned in for the night, disallowed to bring Crackers back with him. He gave up this prize reluctantly, walking back to his room in defeat…

“Why do bad things always happen to me on Thanksgiving?”

Puck’s Blog: Day #2

I was playing with Fran. We blew up some balloons. Lila popped some. Fran nearly popped one. Lila popped one. She popped two, even though she promised that she wouldn’t do it again. That’s the bad news. We did some other stuff too. Then I think we watched some TV for lunch. [I had] chicken nuggets. Fran didn’t get me a kids meal so I couldn’t have a chicken nugget meal.