What About the Milk

Monday, November 5, 2007

Puck began his Monday morning with a boom. Enjoying the new accomplishment of sitting up on his own, he had been chewing on his ring of plastic keys in the living room. Then much to his amazement, he fell over backwards, hitting his head on the floor. He recovered quickly, the little trooper. Collette had known since she found out that she was going to have a boy, that Puck would have many scrapes, bruises, and bumps throughout his years. It came with the territory.

After putting him down for his morning snooze, the tornado sirens blared their monthly rounds.

On the road to the house, the car rattled and moaned.

Clearly, their day was not getting off to the best start.

Over at the house, Rose was not pleased.

“Why do we never have milk around here, Mom?”

“I have four other drivers in the family besides myself,” Mom said, busy with the laundry. “I’m not the only one who can run to the store if we’re low on milk. We don’t have a cow here.”

“Can we get one?” Rose laughed at herself.

“Do you know what we saw at Beaumont?” Frances set down his math pencil, to leave his hands free for demonstration. “A comet blew up. And we saw the sprays of blue in the sky with the telescope. It was amazing!”

Meanwhile, Puck had already had his fill of the fun by 11:30 in the morning, and he was becoming grumpy.

“Oh, come on,” Rose picked him up and galloped him through the house.

Puck thought this was very funny and giggled loudly at every jump.

“Oh!” Rose moaned. “I’m gonna put him in his crib. He’s too fat and I have to do stuff.”

By the time Puck went down for his nap and Mom and Collette were ready to ship out the door to the store, Linnea was not up for coming with them.

“If you stay, you’ll just get in trouble with Rose,” Collette warned her.

“No,” Linnea smiled big. “Rose and me are friends, not foe. Frances and Rose are foe.”

Rose had just come in the back door with a handful of peppers.

“I have the most successful crop yet,” she announced, dumping all five little peppers onto a towel on the counter.

Outside, the winds blew big. Tumbles of yellow leaves followed.

After the visit to the store, Rose was pleased to see two gallons of milk added to the refrigerator’s store.

“Ah,” she said, as she poured herself a large glass.

Rose would, needless to say, never suffer from osteoporosis.

“Oh,” she grimaced. “The cow’s weren’t happy.”

“Angry milk,” Frances laughed, still at the books.

“Collette?” Rose pointed toward the crockpot which housed dinner. “Pepper?”

She picked up one of the little peppers off the counter.

“No,” Collette said.

“Aw,” Rose sighed.

It was Rose’s day off.

“I’m celebrating my victory of passing another test,” she said, as she filled an entire soup bowl with mozzarella cheese.

“Rose, put that back.”

“But it’s my celebration day.”

“You can’t eat all that cheese. You’re going to die.”

“Oh well,” said Rose, happily. “I’m going to die anyway some day.”

“Maybe not when you’re 23 though.”

“I won’t die at 23.”

“Don’t say you’ll die at 24 instead.”

“I’ll die when I feel like it,” Rose laughed as she took a bite of cheese.

Mom saw the bowl of cheese, however, and made her put back half of it.

That evening, on the way back from Target, the car began its terribly loud groan. After OLeif had picked up Augustus and Erasmus from work, they groaned up the driveway.

“The muffler fell off,” OLeif announced, as they walked in the door.

“Yeah, it’s scraping on the ground,” said Augustus.

Well, that would explain it.

For the next hour, the boys watched their television show and tried to be quiet for the sake of the Puck.