CHAPTER ONE
My dentist is insane. I’m pretty sure all dentists are. If I had to spend all day with my hand in a stranger’s mouth, I’d probably lose my mind too. For one thing, he hums “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” all the time. Odd, yes, but the crazy part is that he’s been humming it ever since I was three. That means he’s had the same nursery rhyme worming through his brain for nine years. Nine years! That should tell you quite a lot about him.
There’s also his obsession with ducks.
His office is packed with ducks. Paintings and posters of ducks cover the walls, hundreds of duck figurines stand on every available surface – even his surgical mask has a duck’s bill. This means that while he’s scraping my teeth, what I experience is a duck-man mutant humming “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” – or worse, a duck-man lecturing me on proper oral hygiene.
In my dentist’s strange and frightening world, I should brush my teeth
three
times every day, and each one should last
fifteen
minutes. Whenever I eat so much as a grain of rice, I’m supposed to dash to the loo and gargle mouthwash, brush my teeth front and back, brush my tongue top and bottom,
scrape
my tongue top and bottom, floss thoroughly, gargle a little more mouthwash, and then when I’ve finished all that, I should spend another ninety seconds closely inspecting my teeth in the mirror.
It goes without saying that my brushing technique doesn’t live up to his mad standards. I’d say I spend about four minutes a day on it, which isn’t bad, considering I have a life. Four minutes of teeth brushing is good enough for most days.
But it wasn’t good enough for that day three weeks ago.
That day I had to look perfect.
That morning, I dedicated twenty-one precious minutes to cleaning my teeth. I also spent thirty-seven minutes washing my face, applying moisturizers, cleaning my ears, combing my hair and, for twelve excruciating minutes, I tweezered the seven hairs from my unibrow. (My unibrow hairs are so faint, you need a microscope to see them, by the way.) And, oh yeah, I’d spent an hour the night before ironing my school clothes. And, double oh yeah, I’d slept all night in my bike helmet so my hair would be nice and flat.
What was special about that day?
Was I a contestant in a beauty contest?
Nope.
Was the queen coming to my school, Westbrook Academy, to open the new maintenance closet?
Nope. Have another guess.
Nothing?
OK, I’ll tell you. They were taking our school photos.
Wait! Don’t leave.
I’m not really that superficial. I’ll prove it to you. Come with me to the bookcase in the living room and I’ll show you why I needed to look perfect for that school photo.
CHAPTER TWO
This is no ordinary bookcase. This is where my parents display my framed school photos for all the world to see.
Welcome to my shelf of shame.
Last year’s photo is probably my best, and that’s not saying much. I look very frightened, like I’ve just seen Miss Adolf dancing. I’ve seen Miss Adolf dancing, so I know what I’m talking about.
Excuse me while I shudder…
Hhrrhhr.
So here’s the story behind the first photo…
As I sat in the chair, waiting for my picture to be taken, a spider dropped down on a thread of silk from the ceiling, and stopped right in front of my nose. It was so close I could see its hairy spider legs. So close I could look into its beady spider eyes, where I saw its spidery soul. I froze in fear, my eyes crossed, and … FLASH.
Moving on.
Here’s my photo from two years ago. You’ll notice that not much of my actual face made it into this one. Apart from a bit of my forehead, it’s entirely of the top of my head. I’ve always wondered what the top of my head looks like. Now I know. You want to know what happened with this one?
Well, again, I was in the chair, waiting for my photo, when Frankie told me that my shoe was untied and I fell for a trick that was invented a week after they invented shoelaces.
My dentist is insane. I’m pretty sure all dentists are. If I had to spend all day with my hand in a stranger’s mouth, I’d probably lose my mind too. For one thing, he hums “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” all the time. Odd, yes, but the crazy part is that he’s been humming it ever since I was three. That means he’s had the same nursery rhyme worming through his brain for nine years. Nine years! That should tell you quite a lot about him.
There’s also his obsession with ducks.
His office is packed with ducks. Paintings and posters of ducks cover the walls, hundreds of duck figurines stand on every available surface – even his surgical mask has a duck’s bill. This means that while he’s scraping my teeth, what I experience is a duck-man mutant humming “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” – or worse, a duck-man lecturing me on proper oral hygiene.
In my dentist’s strange and frightening world, I should brush my teeth
three
times every day, and each one should last
fifteen
minutes. Whenever I eat so much as a grain of rice, I’m supposed to dash to the loo and gargle mouthwash, brush my teeth front and back, brush my tongue top and bottom,
scrape
my tongue top and bottom, floss thoroughly, gargle a little more mouthwash, and then when I’ve finished all that, I should spend another ninety seconds closely inspecting my teeth in the mirror.
It goes without saying that my brushing technique doesn’t live up to his mad standards. I’d say I spend about four minutes a day on it, which isn’t bad, considering I have a life. Four minutes of teeth brushing is good enough for most days.
But it wasn’t good enough for that day three weeks ago.
That day I had to look perfect.
That morning, I dedicated twenty-one precious minutes to cleaning my teeth. I also spent thirty-seven minutes washing my face, applying moisturizers, cleaning my ears, combing my hair and, for twelve excruciating minutes, I tweezered the seven hairs from my unibrow. (My unibrow hairs are so faint, you need a microscope to see them, by the way.) And, oh yeah, I’d spent an hour the night before ironing my school clothes. And, double oh yeah, I’d slept all night in my bike helmet so my hair would be nice and flat.
What was special about that day?
Was I a contestant in a beauty contest?
Nope.
Was the queen coming to my school, Westbrook Academy, to open the new maintenance closet?
Nope. Have another guess.
Nothing?
OK, I’ll tell you. They were taking our school photos.
Wait! Don’t leave.
I’m not really that superficial. I’ll prove it to you. Come with me to the bookcase in the living room and I’ll show you why I needed to look perfect for that school photo.
CHAPTER TWO
This is no ordinary bookcase. This is where my parents display my framed school photos for all the world to see.
Welcome to my shelf of shame.
Last year’s photo is probably my best, and that’s not saying much. I look very frightened, like I’ve just seen Miss Adolf dancing. I’ve seen Miss Adolf dancing, so I know what I’m talking about.
Excuse me while I shudder…
Hhrrhhr.
So here’s the story behind the first photo…
As I sat in the chair, waiting for my picture to be taken, a spider dropped down on a thread of silk from the ceiling, and stopped right in front of my nose. It was so close I could see its hairy spider legs. So close I could look into its beady spider eyes, where I saw its spidery soul. I froze in fear, my eyes crossed, and … FLASH.
Moving on.
Here’s my photo from two years ago. You’ll notice that not much of my actual face made it into this one. Apart from a bit of my forehead, it’s entirely of the top of my head. I’ve always wondered what the top of my head looks like. Now I know. You want to know what happened with this one?
Well, again, I was in the chair, waiting for my photo, when Frankie told me that my shoe was untied and I fell for a trick that was invented a week after they invented shoelaces.
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