This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (3 page)

I HATE my dad's favorite T-shirt.

It says, “Is it me or is this place a Festival of Idiots?”

My dad wears this shirt to
every
city council meeting. Every meeting is shown on TV, and at every meeting, my dad stands up in this T-shirt and talks.

So, everyone, and I mean
everyone
, has seen my dad wearing this shirt. They all think he's crazy: because of the shirt, because his hair is fuzzy and too long and never combed, but mostly because of how he lectures the city council members.

He tells them they're ruining the planet by buying light bulbs that use too much electricity. He tells them they're scoundrels for letting their sprinklers water the parking lots. He tells them it's a farce how many trees they waste with all the paper they use. It's the same thing every time.

Dad always says, “If the Good Lord wanted us to be stupid, he wouldn't have put brains in our heads.”

He really believes God's telling him to save the planet. He says it's his mission. I wonder if the Good Lord tells him anything about his T-shirt. I mean, I'm pretty sure the Good Lord doesn't appreciate Dad calling everyone idiots.

I wish my dad didn't wear this T-shirt. I wish he didn't go to city council meetings. Or get so disgusted that no one cares about the planet the way he does. I wish my dad were one of the guys at the city council meeting wearing a suit. I wish he sat quietly. I wish he never got up to talk.

This is why I HATE my dad's favorite T-shirt.

This year we moved. Again. We move every year. Not to a new town. Just to a different neighborhood.

We've lived in so many houses I can't even remember them all. But I don't really have to. They're all pretty much the same. They're called “Handyman Specials.”

This is how it works. Dad finds a house that's vacant. One that looks like it should be bulldozed down. (Some look like they'd fall down without a bulldozer.) He finds out who owns it. Tells them he'll fix up the house for nothing if we can live there for free.

It works every time. When the house looks good, Dad looks for another dump. And we start all over again.

Dad says, “The Good Lord blesses those who got the good sense to work with the hands he gave them.”

If that were really true, Dad and I should've been blessed with a mansion by now. One with a butler and a maid.

I don't like living in broken-down houses. And moving over and over again means I never make any friends. Especially because I don't go to school. Two houses ago, I
almost
made some friends. There were some other homeschooled kids who lived in the neighborhood. Their moms planned field trips for them. And the kids played at the park together sometimes. But by the time I found out about them, our house was fixed up. And it was time to move again.

The only kids I meet in the neighborhood are the ones who walk by our “Handyman Special” on the way to school or to their friends' houses. They look at me on the driveway helping Dad put on a new muffler or flush a radiator, and I know they're thinking I must be some sort of freak. To live in a house that's falling down. To work on cars in the driveway. To have a dad who looks like my dad. What else could they think?

So I normally don't even try to make friends. I pretend I'm invisible. And because of the way I look it usually works. Especially with girls. My old clothes, my greasy hands, my hair falling out of its ponytail. It's almost as if they think looking at me might make my freakishness rub off on them.

Boys are different. They still see me even when I'm trying to be invisible. But not in the way girls
want
boys to see them. They see me as a target. A joke target. I'm a practice punching bag for their humor. The only person they love to make fun of more than me is Dad. He's an even easier target than I am.

This boy Hunter lives on my block. His best friend Evan lives one block over. And they've been brutal. They can't walk by without saying
something
.

“Look at the Grease Monkey and his little Monkey Girl.”

I don't think they can help themselves.

Every neighborhood's the same. Different kids. Same trash talk. And in the world's largest dictionary, there isn't one single word that comes close to describing what it feels like.

That's why this year, I have to do something different. Something that will change what people notice about me.

Unknown Proverb:

“Laughter is the best medicine.”

Ratchet's Proverb: (Part 1)

“Laughter is poison when you are the punch line.”

Ratchet's Proverb: (Part 2)

“But laughter is a lifesaver when your dad's in the attic fixing the air vent and his leg comes through the ceiling of the garage when he misses the two-by-four he was supposed to step on, and the next thing you know his other leg comes through the ceiling too, but you know he's okay because he's laughing so hard his legs are swinging; and you laugh even harder than he does and spit out the water you were trying to swallow. And the whole thing is like a lifeboat on the sinking Titanic because this kind of laughter takes the venom out of the poisonous laughter, and you know you're going to be okay.”

Dear Editors of Stylin' It,

Are you kidding? Those skinny jeans? Those cropped sweaters? Those long scarves looped and tied in just the right way? And those hairstyles? Really?

When I look at your magazine, I can't help but wonder, who dresses like this? I wonder this until I look over to the Teen Junction section of the library and see four girls giggling as they all try to read from the same paperback book. They all look like they just stepped out of your magazine, and it makes me wonder what magazine it looks like I just stepped out of.

Yours truly,

Not a Cover Girl

1.
Find a look in a magazine
—
one that might come close to being possible for me.

2.
Go to Goodwill to buy clothes and accessories.

3.
Put an outfit together.

4.
Wear the outfit to the first “Get Charmed” class.

5.
Introduce myself to the other girls in class.

6.
Make my first real friend. (Hopefully.)

Dad would never win “Father of the Year,” but he's still my “most important person.”

Dad is not normal. He's a crazy environmentalist, who says things like, “Turning a blind eye to science is unethical,” and, “Our children should spit on our graves for the way we squander the goodness of the Good Lord.” And my personal favorite, “It's a no-brainer that designing buildings with windows on the east and west is a colossal waste of energy. It should be a crime!”

Dad's mission to save the world means:

*
He doesn't believe in buying anything new because he can fix
everything
.

*
He doesn't believe in using up the environment because he says it's what the Good Lord gave us to take care of.

*
And he
really
doesn't believe in worrying about what people think because when you're following orders from the Good Lord, why would you care what
people
think?

So most people think Dad's nuts.

But Dad's actually SMART. Not many people know the kind of stuff he does, like “miles above the Earth's surface, our stratosphere's ozone layer is thinning. This ozone hole is caused by chlorofluorocarbons which are created by man-made chemicals.”

The problem is most people don't care about stuff like that, but Dad cares A LOT that “as our ozone layer gets thinner, more harmful UV radiation reaches the Earth's surface every day.” This stuff is ALL he ever talks about, and it makes him sound like a real nut job.

I just wish he could at least
look
smart the way a normal dad looks smart, having a haircut like the dads you see on TV commercials and wearing the kind of clothes you see men wearing in the Sunday paper sale ads. But every day Dad looks the same
—
like a young Albert Einstein wearing a greasy T-shirt and ripped jeans.

Dad's friends call him “Raccoon Dog.” (RD for short.) “Raccoon” because he's so good with his hands. And “Dog” because anyone who can fix your car is man's best friend. I just call him “Dad.” And no matter what he says, or what he does, or how un-normal he makes our life, he'll always be my “most important person.”

Sum Poetry 1

A trip to Goodwill is

=
to

Five racks of shirts

(Only two tops even cool enough to try on),

+

Six shelves of shorts

(Only three pairs in my size),

+

Three bins of shoes

(Only one pair even comes close).