I'm not sure if the boy has picked up Marianne's habit of inadvertent destruction, but Rory has developed what appears to be a Freudian weakness with Pickle jars.
All in about one week, the poor boy has had a litany of accidents involving pickle jars or pickle jar related scenarios. I'm not a big believer in fate, unsuccessful life notwithstanding, but there seems to be more than coincidence going on here. Although he insists it is naught but mere coincidence, I think that the higher powers that be, or Rory himself, are trying to send me some sort of message. What that message can be, for the life of me, I have no idea.
The whole family took to a balmy evening excursion to an oceanside park called Saxe Point. It was a park I had visited in the first weeks I came to Victoria complete with rolling hills, war ruins, and oceanic vistas. Since then, I had searched for it in vain many times and especially on one of Dad's visits but never found it, and much to my chagrin, had never found it again. I was beginning to give it up as having been a figment of my imagination, when Marianne expertly (or almost expertly) navigated us into it one evening for a family picnic. I was delighted to finally be reunited with the place and made a point of logging its location firmly into memory. Rory and Megan covertly made off with one of the large, unopened pickle jars to snack in isolated brooding-teen style even though I had insisted that all the food remain at the picnic table. When he returned, he looked a little more guilty than I would have expected for such a minor crime, which prompted me to inspect the jar a little more closely. Upon doing so, I suppose Rory saw the inspective misgiving in my auspicious eye and came clean. He admitted that after opening the jar, he had knocked it over spilling most of its contents on to the grass of the field. He further admitted that he replaced the pickles to the jar and filled up the missing brine with sea water and the "pickling weeds" with field grass. I gave him the requisite fatherly 'I-told-you-so' speech and promptly disposed of the jar.
Our move out of family housing came swiftly and unexpectedly. After the decison to move out had been made, Marianne was lucky enough to find a near dream home of the right size and price range within days. Had it not been for the muscle and perseverence of the boy, the move would not have been a success. In fact, Rory and I managed to move everything that our large family owned, including ridiculously large and heavy items of furniture that neither he nor I expected to be able to lift in the slightest without assistance, with nothing more than multiple trips in our family mini-van. Marianne commented that Rory was a 'moving machine'. The vague reference to the Terminator movie series prompted me to post the following tongue-in-cheek status on facebook: "David C. Outnumbered by furniture in both mass and volume; no weapons but a single older van; an impossible time-frame; an angry wife - when there seems no hope left at all - David Christopher must look to the machines to save him. Rory Christopher IS the FURNITURATOR. The future (of moving to a new home) is inevitable." Rory was amused by that and the entire move was largely uneventful in terms of damage . . . save one poor jar that fell out of a food box quickly stuffed with fridge items. It was the only casualty to speak of. It was, (you guessed it), a large, full, unopened jar of pickles. It dropped from one of the last boxes Rory was carrying from the house on to the curb under the van and shattered. I don't know what these pickles were made with, but Rory and I were certainly glad that the incident came near the end of the day's moving because the dill stench that scathed our poor nostrils and I'm sure offended many of the residents of the street was nothing shy of atrocious. We drove away quickly with little sympathy for those left behind.
Sometimes when the whole family is in the van and wanting for a snack, and we have yet some stops to make, we pick up a jar of pickles at the grocery store and give everyone in the van something to crunch and munch. It has proven a family favourite as eccentric as it may sound. Rory and I often dip into the jar more than once. On this recent occasion he insisted on holding the newly opened jar on his lap for easy access to more snacking. I warned him that his luck with pickle jars of late had been less than encouraging and that he had best put them down beside me where I could keep them upright. He was adamant, however, to keep them close to himself and in his care. Of course, the jar leaked, and did so all over his lap. The boy emerged from the van looking like he had peed his pants and smelling like a pickle factory.
Upon fully moving in to our new home, we finally managed to unpack well enough to access the refrigerator. We were all hungry, especially Rory. In his hasty rummaging to grab something from the back of the fridge, he managed to knock over a jar of pickles that one of the younger kids had failed to seal very well. Interestingly, not one of the many other jars on the same shelf toppled - only the pickles. The jar was on the top shelf and the pickled brine that sloshed from it managed to cover and, of course, ruin almost all of the few food items that had made the trip and remained even remotely edible.
I have prohibited Rory from going near any pickle jars indefinitely.
See you in hell,
Shakes.
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