Chapter II - I’m A Nut About My Teeth
I woke up the next morning on the wrong side of the bed. Big time. As soon as I opened my eyes, I knew it. I was going to have a helluva chip on my shoulder all day. I looked at the clock; it said 7:24. I’ll get up at 7:30 I thought to myself. That’ll be just enough time to shower and hit the road to school. While lying there, my cat Boo jumped on my bed and started nudging my face with her nose. My cat Boo is quite the cat. She has pitch black shiny fur and quite the personality. She’s smart, too. She knows when I’m sleeping in. I don’t know how she knows, but she does. I realized it was time to get up, so I slid out of bed and stumbled, half-delirious, to the bathroom for a shower.
“Ugh, why did I smoke last night,” I mumbled to myself.
I stumbled, half-delirious into the bathroom to take a nice shower. I take pretty hot showers, with steam and everything. There’s nothing I hate more than an ice cold shower. You can be in a terrific mood, but the moment a stream of freezing cold water hits your back, it’ll piss you off for the next week and a half. I did the shower thing and brushed my teeth meticulously. I’m a nut about my teeth. I brush them three times a day, floss, and use mouthwash. I was even thinking of getting those white strip things to impress my friends. You see, all through high school, I haven’t had a girl try and kiss me once. Not even once. I started to think it was because I had bad teeth and bad breath. Apparently not, because I’m such a goddamn nut about my teeth now. That pretty much verified my alternative hypothesis (alternative hypothesis! I crack myself up). Now I know girls don’t like me because of my crumby personality. A bad personality is a lot harder to fix I’ve learned over the years. Sometimes you say and do things and don’t even realize that you are saying and doing them. Personalities are tricky. I don’t even have my own completely figured out yet.
I’ve been really self-conscious about my teeth especially ever since I got one of them ripped out. It’s been a couple years now since that happened. One night I was sitting at my computer chatting with this girl who I was crushing on big time. Her name was Courtney and she had very pretty dark hair. I’ll tell you about her later. But anyway, I was sitting there, minding my own damn business when my dad comes in all up in arms over the front door being left open. He was just furious that I was trying to cool off the outdoors. But the whole thing was, it wasn’t me who left the door open; it was my sister! What a load of crap! Why would he yell at me for something I didn’t even do? Well he said I should have noticed it and shut it. Maybe I should have, but I was too busy chatting with this girl I was nuts over. Besides, it was hot outside, it could use the cool air.
He said to me, “Pay attention when I’m talking to you, Son!”
You won’t believe what I did. I really shouldn’t have done it. But I rolled my eyes and said “whatever”. That pissed him off something fierce. But what would you have done? You are chatting with this top-notch babe with dark hair and all of the sudden your crazy dad barges in and tries to tell you you’re to blame for something you didn’t even do?
After I told him “whatever” he said I had to get off the computer and go downstairs. That wasn’t going to happen. I just straight up told him “no”. Now he’s beyond pissed, so I go into the kitchen to get a little snack, and I don’t even know what happened after that. He tried to physically force me downstairs into my room, but I wasn’t going to budge. I was still in the middle of a fantastic conversation with the girl. I had to get back to the computer. And boy was I determined. I tried to throw a kick at him near the top of the stairs, but that just made him even more furious after he blocked it. Maybe if I was wiser I would have tried to use my words instead like they try to teach you in kindergarten and everything. Maybe we could have collaborated on the situation a bit. But that wasn’t going to happen that night. We started to wrestle around and pretty soon he’s got me on the floor, his damn knees on my shoulders.
“Get yer damn knees off of me!” I yelled. Now I was pissed. I bet Courtney thought I was blowing her off. Wouldn’t that be something. I’m always worried about girls blowing me off, but now she probably thought I was blowing her off! That would definitely switch it up a bit.
“Apologize!” my dad said.
Apologize!? For what? Minding my own damn business on the computer? I didn’t leave that door open. I was innocent here. At least I thought I was. The problem was, I couldn’t realize the simple fact that I had been very disrespectful. I mean, Hell, I rolled my eyes at the guy and said “whatever”. If I was somebody’s dad and my little shitbag son was rolling their eyes left and right and telling me to buzz off, Hell, I would have them right on the floor with my damn knees on their shoulders telling them to apologize.
But unfortunately I couldn’t realize that simple fact. Instead I called him “Stuttering Stanley”. My dad has a bad stuttering problem, and to be honest I feel damn sorry for the guy. Especially when we’re out in public and I see people look at him a little strange when he stumbles over a word. That’ll just make you feel rotten. When that happens, you have no one to be mad at. It’s not his fault he has a stuttering problem, and it’s not the person’s fault he’s talking to because they don’t know what the Hell’s going on. So in the end you just feel really bad for him. But at this point, I was quite pissed. And I wanted him to be as pissed as I was. So I really tried to strike a nerve by calling him “Stuttering Stanley”. And boy did I ever! He placed his right hand over my mouth and didn’t even say anything. His eyes got really wide and flaming. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him that angry before.
Pretty soon I got fed up with him on top of me covering my mouth and flaring his eyes at me so I just opened my mouth and bit down on his hand as hard as I possibly could. That hurt him. He pulled his hand out hard, ripping one of my teeth out of the bottom row. Pretty soon there was blood everywhere, all over my shirt and all over the floor. I just got so pissed that I just headed out the front door. I went next door to this bum’s house. Neighbor John we call him.
I knocked on the door. It took a second, but he came and opened it. You should’ve seen the look on his face. He wasn’t about to let my bleeding, disrespectful face into his nice little home. He didn’t even know me very well, and here I was, showing up bleeding all over his porch. The guy didn’t even let me say anything. He just said, “I’ll call the cops, get off my porch”. Some compassion this guy had. I mean, for all he knew, a mugger on the street could’ve just hit me in the face with a table leg for chrissake. But I did what he said and got off his porch. I’m some kind of idiot. I’ll listen to some bum I barely know, but my own dad asks me to apologize and I roll my eyes like a smart ass. Hell, I’m not just like a smart ass, I am a smart ass. I’ll admit it. But I’m working on it. But goddamn, I tell you, I have no respect sometimes.
Pretty soon the cops arrived and they found me outside with blood all over my shirt. They asked me what happened, and I told a fib. I knew my dad didn’t mean to rip my tooth out, but boy I was so pissed that he interrupted my conversation with that girl I was crushing on that I told a big time fib. I said that he punched me right in the mouth. The cops believed me too. I mean, it looked like I just got clocked. They went inside to talk to my dad and before you knew it they were hauling him off to jail. That actually made me feel pretty rotten when I saw them bring my dad out in handcuffs. I mean, I don’t care if your dad punches you in the liver. But when you see your dad in handcuffs, and deep down, when you stop lying to yourself, and you know it’s your fault, it makes you feel pretty crumby.
The cops then left and hauled him off to jail. I went back inside and got right back on the computer. Luckily Courtney was still on. Boy did I tell her a bullshit story! I exaggerated the whole thing. I told her it was a complete, knock-down, drag-out, fist fight. I said I was dodging punches left and right but then he landed a lucky swing on me. I think I really had her going too. I told her my dad was drunk and just came home and started attacking me. I wanted her to imagine me as the smooth, cool hero who defeated the drunken, belligerent man. Even though the truth was that I was just a disrespectful child with a lame crush on a girl who had his comeuppance coming. My stories are always a million miles away from the truth. I’m a fibber. I really am.
After I electronically chewed the rag with Courtney for awhile, suddenly my dad showed up back at the house! Apparently he made a lame bail. He just looked at me and said “You need to go.” Boy did I ever! He knew I lied to those cops, and I bet that pissed him off like nothing else ever had. So I left the house and headed out on foot to my grandma’s house. Upon arriving I told her a slightly embellished story regarding the events of that night. She said I could stay there for a few days. Well, in this case a few days turned out to be a few years. My dad said he didn’t want me to live with him up until I learned some respect. So I moved in with my grandmother. And there I was, in my grandma’s bathroom, getting ready for school, digressing into a pointless story about why I’m crazy about my teeth. Probably because I’m brushin’ ‘em.
By then my hair was pretty dry. It’s at this point in time that the biggest goddamn struggle of my entire stupid life begins. Every single morning, I just barely make it school on time because I can never get my hair to look quite right. It’s silly, I know. But if you had red hair like mine, you’d be silly too and would have the same problem. See most people look about the same regardless of how their hair is, wet, dry, short, long, etc. But not me. Not me at all. My hair could just be slightly off and it makes my entire face look completely different. That’s no exaggeration. It just has to “fall” right. If it doesn’t fall right, it’s all wrong and I have to start over. So I stood there in front of the mirror for quite some time trying to get my hair right. Pretty soon it was eight o’clock. If I leave a hair past 8:02 I’ll be late for sure. I quickly threw on some clothes. I always pick clothes that make it look like I don’t care about what I wear. But secretly, I probably care more about what people think than anyone else. I especially worry about the way I look. That day I just threw on a plain yellow shirt. It’s my favorite color after all. I really don’t care what’s on my shirts; usually they are just plain or they might have some lame band name on them. But really, I want people to think that I don’t care what I look like. That’s why I never wear some shirt with some goddamn Abercrombie logo on it or something. Nothing makes me want to puke more than some square-shouldered guy walking around with fourteen babes wearing an Abercrombie shirt. I mean, who the Hell do these people think they are? Anyway, I decided my attire and hair were adequate; so I left.
So I’m driving to school, and I take a few good looks at myself in my rear-view mirror and, goddamn it, my hair just didn’t look right. At this point I always have to make the same decision. Be late and look good, or make it on time and look like a pile of feces. I chose to be late as I typically do and avoid appearing like feces. My first class was Consumer Economics with Mr. Garbage. I’m going to say mean things about Mr. “Garbage” so I’m not going to use his real name here. Mr. Garbage will have to do. I wouldn’t miss much in first period; it’s a stupid class, anyway. I turned around and went back to my house to work on my hair a little bit more.
I worked it for awhile, and pretty soon I got it close to perfect. Rarely is my hair perfect, but I can get it close if I work on it for awhile. It’s hard to get red hair to look good, that’s my whole problem. If I had brown or blonde hair, I’m sure I wouldn’t be such a nut. But I have a couple goddamn recessive genes. I learned in biology that you have to have two red hair genes to have red hair, because it’s the most recessive. I mean most people don’t even have one red hair gene and I got slapped with two of them. Just my luck, eh?
So I’m back in my car on the way to school. I do the smart thing and just turn my rearview mirror around so I can’t even check myself out anymore. I pull into the parking lot and make a mad dash for the front door, my backpack swinging back and forth. Since I got there so late, I had to park really far away, making me even later.
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