Teeth

“I’d rather drown in Drain-o than have your teeth!” is not something that has been said to me. But it is what the Yahoo ads imply with their yellowed, chipped, rotted teeth photos that would strike horror into the hearts of zombies.

During my last visit, my 3 year-old nephew pointed at my teeth then touched his own, looking puzzled. “Why are yours like that?” he asked, curious and afraid. I told him, of course, that it was because I was special, and he was not. I may have gone too far by warning him that all his teeth were going to fall out and vegetables would sprout in their place. Then he cried ... and forgot all about my teeth.

Twice now my dentist has asked me if I happened to notice that my teeth were crooked. I think he had been talking to my nephew. I played dumb, calling for a hand mirror as I peeled back my lips to investigate the situation. “By gum, they are crooked!” I exclaimed. “Can anything be done, doc? What are my chances?” He gave me a pamphlet on orthodontic payment plans. Did you ever notice how people in ads for teeth products always throw their heads back and hang their mouths open like cackling skeletons? I’ve never seen someone look like that in real life, and I hope I never do.

My husband hates the idea of me getting braces, because he thinks my teeth are “cute and unique” the way they are. I suspect he also likes having the straightest teeth in our marriage. His are like the set sitting on the dentist’s counter: the set that the dentist always picks up to show me what I should be shooting for. But I’ll allow that he has earned his pearls through years of milk guzzling and humble submission to wearing a chicken coop's worth of wire in his mouth. In middle school he even waded through a big, blue cafeteria dumpster to find his retainer (and hasn’t been able to stomach tater tots ever since). He probably wouldn’t want this getting out, but a few years ago, he underwent a procedure called “a gingival graft” to add more gum tissue to the exposed root of his canine—the result of harsh brushing. I’ve never had a gingival graft. I also have one less cavity than him. So I’d call the score about even.
I guess I have become more comfortable with my teeth since getting married. For years I close-lipped smiled for photos and got annoyed by people coaxing me to “smile bigger.” Once Kirsten Dunst hit it big, I was smally comforted, since our teeth are disordered in approximately the same way. Maybe I would be able to lead a respectable life. When I realized that my husband wasn’t recoiling in repulsion or shoving orthodontic brochures in my face, I really began flashing the chaotic enamel with abandon. Soon I became unselfconscious about it, for the most part. The times of embarrassment still come when I visit my nephew—or when I bite into a nice piece of milk chocolate and see the erratic indentations of my teeth, like some postmodern arch. Then I wrap my lips securely around my teeth—like an adolescent girl hides her hands in her cuffs—and imagine I’m Julia Roberts.

A Night To Remember

In 5th grade a mob of pony-tailed girls threw me off a 10-story building then steamrollered my remains.

At least that’s how I felt after Jessie’s slumber party. In fact, I’m still a little flattened from the experience.

Boy was I thrilled, to be handed the little invitation with a cat sticker sealing the envelope. Little old me with an invitation to a ball! The tri-folded directions to her house were as magical as a treasure map. All the girls in our class responded to Jessie’s invitation distribution with cartwheels and squeals. No doubt this would be a hopper of a hoe-down. For the entire week our imaginations were bubbling over about the sleepover. We counted down the days til Friday and girls passed notes like this:

“Dear Katy,

Do you think they’ll have pizza?
Circle one: YES NO

-Becky”

“Dear Becky,

Yah, I bet they will have TONS of pizza! But I hope it’s not thin crust (yucky face). Thin
crust is nasty! Gotta go, Mrs. Brown is looking at me. Bye!

Katy”


Friday night finally came. In my feverish excitement I almost fell down the cellar steps that led to the garage. I climbed into my dad’s “Rust Bucket” (as my mom contemptuously called it) or “Beast” (as my dad affectionately called it). The engine heated up as I burrowed amongst the old newspapers and tissues covering the passenger seat. Soon we were off, creaking along toward the glowing spot on the horizon--Jessie’s house. Despite the blasting air, I had to wiggle my toes to keep them warm. I clutched my sleeping bag as we climbed and descended the five miles of hilly two-lane roads. I had never been to Jessie’s house before, so the route there in the deepening dusk added to my anticipation.

If you imagine a friend ladder, Jessie was probably two rungs from the bottom of mine. She was nice and everything, but since she was best friends with her mom, she wasn’t close friends with anyone at school. She was afraid to spend the night over anyone’s house and didn’t go on field trips unless her mom was a chaperone. Her parents got a D-I-V-O-R-C-E (you can’t actually say the word without sinning) when she was little.

I had been to a few sleepovers before, but never with this many girls and never at a rich girl’s house. Well, rich to me--she had her own bathroom. And I was betting that she’d have real ice cream, not the brown-white-pink kind packed in a 5 gallon tub.

According to our magical map, we were entering the densely forested portion of the journey, as indicated by the mini pine-trees. It began to snow. Big airy flakes danced around us like fairies. My dad appointed me as the Look-out to scan the roadsides for deer. They’re a big problem in Western Pennsylvania--if you hit one your car gets totaled at your own expense because deer don’t have liability insurance. That’s what my dad says, and he knows because he sold insurance for about six different companies throughout my elementary school tenure. Straightening up in my seat with eyes alert, I scanned diligently, though my mind wandered to grim hypotheticals. Sometimes their antlers crash through the windshield and impale you. And on Animal Planet they said that Australia has a similar problem with kangaroos; the strong feet decapitate you.
Know what the saddest animal to run over is? A family cat. That happened once to our cat, Striper. Mom ran him over with the mini-van because he stole the pot roast off the counter. Just kidding. She ran him over by accident pulling into the garage at night. We buried him over the hill in my mom’s silk slip. By this time tomorrow I would have liked to crawl into that crude grave with him. But for now, it was all rosy cheeks and fluttery heart.

The Rust Bucket Beast slowed to a stop in the snow outside Jessie’s house.

“464 Maple Avenue. This must be it,” my dad said.
We looked at the impressive stone house. Shadows danced past the lower story windows.
“Ok, thanks, Dad,” I beamed swinging the door open.
“Love ya, Sweetie Peetie. Have fun. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”
“K, bye!”

Smoke billowed around the idling Beast as he watched me crunch through the snow up the long walkway to the front door. Wow, was their front yard big! And no exposed tree roots to trip over, like at our house. And dogs! I hear dogs barking in the backyard. They’re allowed to have dogs! Maybe they also have a unicorn with a rainbow mane?

I pushed the doorbell, hearing laughter and music inside. It had been a tough year for me in school, like every year. I desperately wanted to find my place in the class, but just couldn’t. I ended up not liking many kids, and few kids liked me. Maybe they didn’t like me first. I don’t know. But these little parties meant so much more to me than what they were. I knew without knowing that tonight was a magic moment that just may, somehow, transform me into a princess who everyone loved. It was pure wish. But I had received an invite--that was enough of a start to stir up hope.

The sleepover was more than being a special chance to become part of the group, it also became an escape ladder out of my house. It had been a tough year at home too, like every year. I pretty much hated being at the house--I don’t say ‘home’ because a home is a house built out of love--, but I had to be there, especially because my mailbox wasn’t stuffed with party invites.

I heard the door unlatching, and then a spear of light pierced through the cracked door. There stood Jessie’s mom in a white apron. She smiled as the smell of cupcakes poured around her from the kitchen. Vanilla vapors swirled and drew me inside. The warmth of the house hit me like Christmas morning. As I tugged my boots off in the threshold, I stared at the fireplace in the den. How could anyone possibly deserve a fireplace like that? Jessie was beyond “lucky” or “blessed”(as the people at church said)-- she must be some kind of royalty. I’d later find out that child support largely funded that furnace. Her divorced parents tried to salve the separation’s scar by giving her outrageous gifts. Like for her birthday this year she got a GOLF CART. A real one. She rode all over her yard in it with her sweatered Schnauzer. She also got an Italian leather jacket, even though kids totally ruin that kind of stuff. I wasn’t jealous, just awestruck.

Her mom returned to the kitchen as I followed the laughter down the hall to Jessie’s room. As I turned the corner, I saw from the threshold of her room that all the girls were already there, piled on the Queen-sized bed. They dropped dead silent and stared at me, as expressionless as stones.

“Hi,” I said.
A couple girls looked at the floor and around the room.
“Hi,” Jessie mumbled back.

“Turned the corner”-- more like turned into the coroner’s. A hot panic rushed through me as I grasped the situation. They don’t want me here. My eyes fell to the floor as I stared blankly at my socks. I wanted to run home. But somehow my socks were sucked into the plush carpet like quicksand. I knew I couldn’t leave--my dad was almost home by now--and I knew that that fact was even more disappointing to the girls than to me. Unconsciously I slid my backpack off my shoulder and stood beside the overpopulated bed. They resumed chatting and fixing each other’s hair. Wow, the bed had a dust ruffle! Stupid dust ruffle. I tried to laugh when they laughed, but mine was a little too loud and too late. So I’d look back down at the dust ruffle. After they were sufficiently French-braided and baretted, we headed (thank God) for the downstairs’ torture chamber, (I mean “gameroom.”)

Snowflakes of hope were shaken within me as I was caught up in the blizzard of excitement around me--all the pajama’d legs rushing down the stairs in bright slippers. A change of environment, a change of activity--maybe this was my chance to climb up the friendship ladder a few rungs. Jessie put on an oldies record. As the needle found its groove, out blasted “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” We lined up to take turns inventing silly dance moves, each trying to outdo the previous girl. Our screaming and laughing filled the house and burst through the chimney like a firework. Oh boy, my cross-eyed old man hobble was gonna bring the house down!

When my turn came I didn’t hold back. I had the stage. I could feel the funniness of my contortions, laughing at myself as I danced. And it did bring the house down! The roof collapsed right on my head. The girls simply stood there, like pillars, and rolled their eyes. I wanted to rip the record off the player and dash it against the wall. Instead, I hung up my hobble and stood against the wood paneling like a ghost, watching the others get in line over and over again. The contrast was almost laughable. I behold their ruddy, exuberant faces rife with merriment and imagined my pale, floating head alone in the room-- the head of Bob Marley…from Dickens, not from the Carribbean.“Let’s play Hide-N-Seek,” someone suggested. “Anything,” I thought. I was assigned to be one of the Hiders and quickly found an awesome spot under the stairs behind some boxes. It was cramped and musty. But I must say that I was exercising phenomenal restraint by not bursting out laughing at how well I was hidden. They were going to be dazzled by my ingenuity when they finally discovered me. Maybe my new nickname would be Princess Houdini. Every few minutes I’d have to carefully shift my position so that my legs wouldn’t go numb.

As I sat crunched up, I remembered that one time when I was playing Hide-N-Seek at home I hid in the dryer and won! I was awarded a spanking because, “Don’t you know that’s dangerous!?” “Yes, I know, that’s why my display of courage is all the more valiant,” I’d retort. My mom said I should be a lawyer because I could argue about everything. How she said it made me never want to be a lawyer. I wanted to become a prison guard because they can argue with everyone, but no one can argue back because they’re in JAIL. I only argued with my parents, not with kids at school--even when I should have. After what felt like 15 minutes under the stairs, I started to wish that I’d picked a more obvious place, like in the coat closet. I was getting bored and feeling phantom bugs scrambling across my arms.

When I reached the point of sweating from the stuffiness, I peeked my head out and heard muffled voices coming from the adjacent garage. As I creaked the garage door open I saw the girls sitting in circles playing Chutes & Ladders.

“Why didn’t you come find me?” I asked, confused and upset.
“Because you were the only one playing,” Brittany snapped.
“That’s really mean,” I shot back.
“That’s really mean,” she mocked. “No one wanted to find you.” She looked back at her cards.

I didn’t know what to do except shut the door. My feet carried me back upstairs to the kitchen, and to my knowledge, I didn’t leave any glass slipper on the staircase. The only snacks left were broken pretzels and carrot sticks. At least I was alone. In fact, I tried to joke to myself, “I think I’m alone now. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around. The beating of my heart is the only sound.” I felt the temporary relief of a fugitive who ducks into a darkened alley.

That’s it, I thought to myself. The snow permanently settled at the bottom of the globe. I would not allow it to be shaken again.

The hum of the refrigerator and the nightlight above the sink were somewhat comforting, but the solitude was to be short-lived. I heard someone coming up the stairs, and then Bethany appeared. Of all the girls who could have darkened the kitchen threshold, I was glad it was her. She was the quietest girl in the class, and there wasn’t much to love or hate about her. Everyone was kinda friends with her, but no one was best friends with her. I could tell by her round, still eyes that she had nothing against me.

“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said, like a tire going flat. “There’s not much left.” I motioned to the food.
We picked at the pretzels.
“Why are they being like this?” I asked.“I dunno. I think Jessie’s mom made her invite all the girls in the class or she couldn’t have the party.”
“Well, why didn’t they want me to come?” I asked, frustrated.
“I don’t know. Just didn’t,” she said.

We walked with the bowl into the living room where I saw all the sleeping bags arranged over the floor. There lay Barbie, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, smiling on the bags, clearly enjoying their own ball.

“Everyone already picked their spots,” I observed.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.

I retrieved my brown, plaid bag from the hallway where I had left my boots and unrolled it in the kitchen. It might as well have had Cinderella’s step sister on it. Then Bethany dragged hers from the living room and laid it in the threshold between the living room and kitchen, near mine. We didn’t really talk much, but it was comfortable silence, with munching and an occasional exchange about school.

The “garage girls” came up eventually and were somewhat surprised, but mostly apathetic, to see me and Bethany together. I just ignored them and sat on my bag as they traipsed into the living room talking about Mr. Carey, the cute new gym teacher at school.

I fell asleep early with the bag pulled tight around my head so that they couldn’t pull pranks on me as I slept. I looked like a caterpillar. When I woke up I smelled syrup and saw slippers shuffling back and forth across the kitchen floor. Some of the girls had stayed up the entire night. They proudly munched their waffles. The girls who were overtaken by sleep insisted that they had heard the first bird chirps (even though they were betrayed by their lop-sided ponytails.) "Yes, we did hear them!" "No, you didn't!" was the breakfast conversation. "Who cares?" I thought as I fished in my milk for that elusive last Cheerio.

I don’t know how I got through that interminable night, but I was never more excited to see my dad walking toward me in the morning sun. Because I never figured out what I had done wrong, I concluded that I was something wrong. Maybe it was a sort of birth defect. Or maybe I had done something to deserve it. It felt like a leprosy of the personality that no action or inaction on my part could remedy. Anticipation of rejection settled into my bones like arthritis, and I hobbled through school, just waiting for the bell, waiting to get home to my cat, waiting to get my red nose into a book. After Jessie’s sleepover, school and home became almost hollow; the hope of magical transformation was shattered like the mirror mirror on the wall.

A Nasty Bear Searched for Food in a Jungle

Once my family went on a camping trip in the jungle. My brother and dad set up the tent and me and my mom went to pick berries.

While we were picking berries I asked my mom if when we got back to the tent if we could have a salomee sandwich. Just then it donned on her we forgot our food. With no response to my question she ran back to the tent.

In the distance she saw two big blobs sitting on the bank. When she reached the tent she saw the boys with a discouraged face, holding in their hands a fishing pole and a cup of worms. They went to get some chips and found out also. Father spoke up and said, “I guess I forgot the food and not the worms.”

While my mom and dad were talking I ran back to the tent. When I got there no one was there-- they all went to look for food. When we ate supper all we had was three berries a piece, and two fish.
After dinner we all went to bed. That night a big black bear licked my mom’s feet. He thought he smelled honey. But it was only the fragrance from the berry bushes.

But when they went home they all lived happily ever after.

The End

(age 8)

Grandparents Day

Every year our elementary school celebrated grandparents by having them come for a luncheon. In Art class that week we'd make crafts with construction paper or dry macaroni to present to them when they arrived. A couple kids from each grade would read little poems at the mic that made the grandmas cry.

But my grandpa was always dead on Grandparents Day. He died when I was 3. And although I was glad that my only living grandparent, my dad’s mom, was sturdy and reliable, I won’t lie-- there was a slightly-hunched, balding, grandpa-shaped hole in my little heart.

So one year I decided I’d find a stand-in grandpa for Grandparents Day. Mr. Huggies was an old friend and neighbor of my grandparents, and he would do just fine. The problem, however, was that he had a wife. That meant an extra grandma, which I had no use for, especially one whose severe asthma left her in a state of constant wheezing. She wheezed so loud that you’d have to repeat everything, especially jokes. And she was never able to come over to our house because we had three cats and a rabbit, which made her suck at her inhaler like a lollipop. I wished she’d just buck up and get over it. But she wouldn’t.
So when I walked up the hill to Mr. Huggies’ house to invite him to Grandparents Day, he was honored and enthusiastic.
“Oh, wonderful! Wait til I tell Louise. We’ll have such fun!”
“Oh, no, Louise is part of the package,” I thought to myself.

In the coming days I tried to cold-shoulder Louise out of coming, but she didn’t notice because of all the wheezing.

“Hi, Mister Huggies,” I’d say, not even looking at Louise.
But her eyes were closed as her inner ear echoed with a monstrous wheeze--the kind that blew the little pigs’ house down.

“How does Harold deal with this?” I wondered to myself.
He appeared to spend a lot of time doing yard work. He also appeared to have hearing aids.
“Is it possible he’s just used to it?”

“Would you like to watch The Price is Right with me?” Louise asked hoarsely from the velvet recliner she was sucked into.
“No, thanks. I want to help do the yard work,” I replied.
“Oh, I can’t go outside because the pollen and cut grass --“ and she went into another fit recalling the organic stimuli to mind. As she was grasping for a butterscotch to coat her throat, I backed my way to the door and let myself out into the fresh air with Mister Huggies. He was wearing yellow goggles as he clipped the bushes.

I wasn’t allowed to touch the clippers, not even the dull manual ones. My helpfulness extended to poking around the flowerbed with a hand shovel to clear out rocks. He mainly didn’t want to get in trouble with my parents if I hurt myself on the motorized, sharp, or otherwise deadly yard machines.

“Parents think kids are so incompetent,” I mused digging around the orange and yellow mums. “Even when they let you use things under supervision, they somberly warn you, ‘Now these scissors are sharp--don’t cut yourself.’ But the worst is when you’ve already fallen down and they say something like, ‘Be careful!’ Gosh. I wish parents didn’t treat their kids like idiots simply because that’s how the warden treated them when they served an 18-year sentence in their parents’ prison. I think it’s funny that parents can get in trouble with the police for hitting their kid, but not for being so annoying!” I became aware that the mowing was completed when I saw Mister Huggies raking piles of cut grass together as Bob Barker blasted through the living room asking who wanted to play Plinko. When I woke up on Grandparents Day I was anxious about how this 3-wheeled Grandparent contraption was going to ride steadily through the day. 3 grandparents, but only two crafts--one for a grandma, and one for a grandpa; 3 grandparents, but only two seats--one for a grandma, and one for a grandpa. Lying in bed, a series of unfortunate but not deadly events played across my imagination: what if Louise lost her inhaler? What if she overslept and couldn’t curl her hair in time? What if Harold just gave it to her straight and had her stay home to make soup? She came. And I think it worked out fine, besides my bad attitude.

You may be disappointed that I didn’t tell you more about what happened on Grandparents Day. Well, me too. I’m disappointed that I don’t remember much more about it. My recollections are clustered around the dread leading up to it. I do remember liking what my grandma wore to the event--a cranberry suit with an ivory, silk blouse and elegant brooch. Louise wore a lavender sweatshirt with huge cat heads on it.

I vaguely recall that the long luncheon tables were covered with spring-colored disposable tablecloths. Potted plants (which grandparents got to take home) were dropped every few feet to keep the cloths from flying away. My real grandma insisted that the Huggies take the little violets with them. I wish Grandma and Louise would have had a tug of war over it, cracked the pot, tousled their curly helmets of hair, and then ended with Grandma holding the plant aloft with dangling roots as she stepped triumphantly--with one sensible shoe--on a heaving Louise. I think the poor plant was covered in a grocery bag and placed in the trunk to get it to the Huggies--because surprise surprise, it was a variety possessed with offensive allergens.

Some kids didn’t have any grandparents attend Grandparents Day; and some had all four. My grandma seemed genuinely pleased to have the Huggies there and even more pleased with me for “adopting them.” She was a very generous woman with an enormous capacity for overlooking peoples’ flaws. I doubt she even noticed Louise’s wheezes; they were all I could hear. At the age of 10 I wasn’t yet able to conduct myself with her same generosity--they were mighty sensible shoes to fill--so I gave up on a surrogate grandpa. Instead I contented myself with my Grandma, who would then receive all the crafts and poems on Grandparents Day, without one wheeze.

Corning

There’s a lot of corn in Western Pennsylvania, or at least there used to be before the Super K’s landed and popped it all. In fact, the only thing there was more of than corn was old people. Those two facts led to a regional form of adolescent terrorism. We didn't invent corning--it was more passed on by older siblings. I guess you could say we just grew up around corning, or that it grew up around us!

In those days we’d fill brown lunch bags with corn kernels and wait til dusk. Dressed in dark clothes and noiseless shoes we'd fly through the neighborhood. With wild eyes we’d throw fistfuls of corn at windows and metal screen doors-- Ping! ping! ping!-- running erratically, laughing hysterically. On average it would take the elderly victim 30 seconds to heave himself from the chair and shuffle to the window, where he’d peak out with frying pan clutched in one hand. The terror would quickly turn to rage when they spied the scattering kernels. By gaw, they could shake a fist!


One of the funniest cornings happened when I was sleeping over at Annie’s on a holiday weekend. Our parents were downstairs talking about “their lives” and playing cards over bowls of pretzels and veggie dip while we were in her second-story bedroom with the window open, plotting. The neighbor’s house was about 20 feet away, and its aluminum siding was taunting us with its acoustics.

So we crept downstairs to the kitchen to steal some corn. When we opened the barrel we saw only the bottom--we had depleted the supply from our previous expeditions. Gosh. Were there any beans that could substitute? None. Fruit pits? Nope. Necessity called forth our creative genius, and we looked at each other knowingly. We seized the bowl of cookie dough from the fridge and dashed upstairs.

The only thing funnier than corn pelting the aluminum siding of an elderly neighbor’s house is the splatting of cookie dough and its slow, goopy descent to the ground. Teaspoons were our catapults, but after my first flick I was laughing so hard that I dropped the spoon, which fell onto the metal awning of the living room’s window below.

“Annie?!” her mom screamed seconds later from the foot of the stairs.
“Annie, come here! What’s going on?!” And that was the end of that.

***

The scariest corning happened when a large group of us were roaming around looking for targets. We stopped to strategize by a sporty black car that was parked along the curb, and it instantly consumed our attention.

The car looked like it was from another world, or at least another township, like Chapel Greens. It had shiny everything, tinted windows, and a mysterious blinking red light on the dashboard. No sooner did I cup my hands on the driver’s window to get a better look at the insides of this alien auto than the alarm went off in a spewing of shrieks and trills. Seconds later a fit and frenzied young male burst out of a nearby house. As if the frenetic alarm wasn’t scary enough, the bull-man charging us sent us into a confused flight as we split apart running for cover, running for the woods, running for open wells.
But he caught a knot of us by the backs of our t-shirts, spun us around, and demanded to know what we were doing. We stammered that it was an accident. His nostrils were still steaming, but he could see our terror and realized that we weren’t hoodlums--the only thing we were carrying was a bag of corn and some Skittles (in case we ran out of corn).

“I have a really expensive stereo system,” he explained to our dilated pupils as he released his grip.

“Sorry,” we mumbled.

It rather spoiled our desire to corn that evening, so we went back to one of our houses and rode Big Wheels down the middle of the steepest street. They weren’t outfitted with shiny anything, unless you count the dried snot of some pre-schoolers who rode them earlier that day.

Swheat!

Today we got a new kind of litter for our cats called "Swheat!" It is made of wheat. They do not like it.

We like it because it can be flushed down the human toilet. They think it smells like bread, and as a rule they don't go potty on whole grains.

To acclimate them to the new litter you're supposed to sprinkle it on top of their old litter. They didn't fall for that. So we put a little ceramic bowl of milk at the back of the pan to lure them in. Somehow they got at the milk bowl by standing on the edges of the pan and not disturbing the litter.

Not only did we change their litter up on them, we also got them a new UFO to jump into when they have to go. We got sick of stepping on cat litter that they'd fling out of the pan, so we got one with a roof and a little opening to jump through and there's an alien on top with glowing eyes that says, "This is the mother ship."

We're hoping that when they're good and ready they'll try out the wheat and discover that it's the best thing since...sliced bread.

Student of the Month

I got this once because everyone else in the class had already got it. I guess they didn’t want me to feel left out and then kill myself at 19. Megan had got it 3 times in a row and they only gave it to Becky on the 4th month because she happened to witness and report a playground accident in a timely and courageous manner. Then it was back to Megan for months of big spirited charity upon weeks of patience and perseverance upon days of obedience and punctuality upon hours of honesty and diligence upon minutes of selflessness and longsuffering. I think she was canonized during the year-end pep rally.

It was a stupid white sheet with a dumb dancing border and template lines for the recipient’s name and the date, with a baroque seal in the corner signed by the Principal. This was before the days of also getting a bumper sticker for the family mini-van, thank the Lord.

Well, maybe I didn’t deserve it. In 3rd grade the teacher wrote on my report card that “Grablatch gets ‘in a mood’ sometimes.” And the kids would chant at me during gym class as I ran up and down the court, “Sull-en! Sull-en!” I did withdraw and pout for lots of reasons, most of which I gratefully forget. But surprisingly, my teacher’s and classmates’ astute observations about my behavior did not succeed in helping me to get out of moods into whatever their opposite is--sprightliness? And I certainly didn’t see the path out either. It all made for a lot more sullenness and a lot less awards.

But you better believe I tried to make up for it by beating the whole class in the 50 yard dash and winning the spelling bee and selling the most magazines for the fundraiser and getting stickers on all my homework and and and. Yet the student of the month certificate was beyond my reach, except that once, when I didn’t even deserve it. Really, that stupid sheet meant “the person of the month,” and I guess everyone needs to earn that once…or else you’ll eat your height in fudge and whiskey to dull the pain.

The clinical overachieving lasted through college until every spark of laughter was snuffed out of my dry and tired soul. It wasn’t until I started refusing to prove myself that the laughing returned. Since then, I have gained 200 pounds, grown a beard, and welcomed 35 cats and 6 inches of dust into my apartment. Who's laughing now?