Memoir of Hell

September 11, 2008

My son, Ian, who will be 15 next month, is working on his memoir. (I imagine it'll be short). I thought you'd like the first 3 paragraphs of what he's titled "Memoir of Hell." I've cleaned up the spelling and punctuation a bit.

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I can describe my family in one word. Insane. My dad works out of the house. My mom works with poop and her sense of smell is shot. My brother is Mister Hyper Pants. If he could run around the world he'd be back in one second. Then he'd say, "Did you miss me?" or my personal favorite, "My new personal record--oh yeah!--I ran the Great Wall of China!" My dog, Frodo, or best known as Pudge, Idiot, Moron, Stupid, Stupid Dog, Can't Catch a Cat if it Stared him in the Face, is the dumbest dog on the planet. Then there's me, Ian, the unrational kid who won't back down.

My mom is a medtech, or as she calls it, the Lab Rat. She's the funniest person on the planet. She likes to talk about work over dinner when we're all eating. Her conversation is usually about how much she hates her co-workers and poop. Today she said she felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, but she wasn't looking for the Emerald City. She was looking for the Ruby Slippers and Toto, and instead of a basket she had a shotgun. You know, I can actually see that image. She's wearing a Jimmy Buffet T-shirt, black shorts, and a lab coat, no shoes, carrying around a shotgun with a look of "Get the hell out of my face." Then she would say, "I was looking for the Dead Witch... I found the munchkins instead."

My dad, on the other hand, is the opposite of Mom. He does not work with poop, thank God. He works out of the house. My brother described his job as typing on the computer and making phone calls. His office manager is our dumbest smart dog, Frodo. Lately the office manager has been shirking his job and sleeping on the couch. Sounds like something I want to do. Dad's a freelance writer. He writes about some science tech that goes in one ear and out the other of my head. He has a huge computer, it almost takes up the entire wall since he's almost blind. His eyesight is that bad. He also writes fiction. He wrote Dirty Deeds, Catfish Guru, The Devil's Pitchfork, and The Serpent's Kiss. He's a big action writer but not so famous. The Devil's Pitchfork and Serpent's Kiss are being sold in Slovakia or somewhere near there in Europe. I found that funny as hell.

Cheers,

Mark Terry