Splash Zone: The Disneyland of Water Parks. Also coincidentally one of the major water parks that was open year round and NOT owned and operated by Disney or one of its fellow megacorporation competitors. And like all good theme parks Splash Zone was part nostalgia, part right of passage, part tourist attraction, and part tourist […]

Carrey was sitting in her chair in the lecture hall daydreaming and looking at the clock. This particular lecture was boring. The teacher had been droning on for hours. “I wish something exciting would happen,” she whispered to herself. Suddenly, she heard a baby’s voice yell “Go poopie, now!” She looked around the room and […]

Chapter 59: Another Million Ways to “Why” The rest of that Friday morning passed by without either open defiance or clever subversion. The rebellion that was ‘Why Day’, once quashed, turned into a bunch of quiet whines and attempts to suck-up in order to get playground privileges back. No more ‘Why?’. Instead the question became […]

Chapter 58: A Million Ways to “Why” “Pssst” Tommy whispered to me on our way out of the cafeteria after breakfast. “Clark.” I snapped out of my haze and pivoted sideways as much as I could look at Tommy while still being forced to hold Ivy’s hand. “What?” Unbelievably, I was more than slightly hungover […]

Chapter 57: Adventures in Being Babysat Thursday Night. The television clicked off. The Muffets were on and Lita Coreno was about to do her famous rendition of ‘Fever’, arguably the bit that first made the show in Season 1. It was a classic, and something I felt I needed to watch right then. I pounced […]

Chapter 56: The Crying Game I cried all day that first Wednesday. It was spectacular! The best day I’d had at school since I’d come back. Big time fun and all it cost me was another sleepless night of telling Janet through the baby monitor how much she’d ruined everything until I passed out in […]

Chapter 55: Technically… Tuesday. “Okie dokie, Clark,” Mrs. Beouf said to me. “For today, I want you to paint a frog, okie dokie?” I didn’t react. I just stood there at the easel, lightly nodding. “You can paint the frog any color you want, too. Okie dokie?” My eyes were wide open constantly scanning the […]

Chapter 54: Every Little Thing Falls Apart “Are you sure you want to do this?” It was Janet, because of course it was. She’d coaxed my cooperation out of me by dangling this last meal in front of me and now she was trying to talk me out of it. “This could…this could go not […]

Chapter 53: Apologies, Promises, Lies, Love, and Defeat People think that love is patient. They think that love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It goes on a bit, all the great and benevolent things about love and how nice it is. It’s a nice sentiment. It’s […]

Chapter 52: Anything but Child’s Play Right after nap time I was taken out of the crib, checked, and lined up. All said, it was pretty fast. Only Jesse and Mandy ‘needed’ changing. Everyone else was either dry or ‘not that wet’’. A shame, the mean survivalist part of my brain decided. If I had […]