Carrie Link

FEELING PUNCHY

Getting any kind of details out of Rojo about Outdoor School has been a lot like pulling teeth (raise your hand if you're surprised). In fact, the term "monosyllabic" comes to mind.

"Was it fun?"

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

"Dunno."

"Did you eat?"

"Yes."

"What did you eat?"

"Dunno."

And so on.

But, the one thing we've heard about in excruciating detail, is the punch.

"Mom, they had PUNCH at Outdoor School! It's red and they put it in a pitcher and in the pitcher is ice and you pour the pitcher and the ice and the punch comes into your glass. Can we get punch? Can we pour it in a pitcher? Can we just keep refilling the pitcher after it's gone? Can we put ice in the pitcher? Can we just all drink the punch from the pitcher with ice?"

Yesterday my cell phone rang. "Jenn" came up on Caller ID. Jenn is Rojo's aide and that is pretty much the only call I take. No. Matter. What.

She was calling about the punch.

They hadn't been able to get off topic all morning - he wanted the NAME of the exact punch they drank at Outdoor School, and of course Jenn wasn't there so she could only guess. Rojo had poor Jenn Googling "punch" until she found the label he recognized.

"That's it!" he said upon seeing the Hawaiian Punch label.

"Oh!" Jenn said, "That's called Hawaiian Punch."

"No, that's not it then, ours was called Oregon Punch," he said.