Chex Mix

I never really liked home. It’s not because my parents beat me, or rape me, or are alcoholics, or my dog died in my arms on the living room floor. But because I have nothing to do at home. I don’t have friends to hand out with, I don’t have older siblings to talk to. Well, I do have an older sister, though she’s off out of college and has one or two kids of her won. I wouldn’t know. She lives in Nebraska. And, well, I don’t. I also have a dog. He’s a big golden retriever who breathes his dragon breath in people’s faces and carries around a baby alive doll from when I was little like if he lets go, she’d disappear. His name is Bob. Bob the dog.

I climb out of my mother’s Lexus and go into the house, closely followed by her.

“Ryan, honey, when did you say cheerleading tryouts were again?” she asked, placing a hand on my shoulder as she scurried to catch up with me.

“I didn’t.”

“Oh. Well, dear, you’ve got to keep practicing until then so you can make the team.”

“Right.”

I roll my eyes and pick up the pace as we enter the front hall of the house, and practically sprint my room, where my dog, Bob, awaits me, laying on my bed, covering it with dog hair.

“Hi doggie,” I say in my best puppy voice as I close the door then attack him with hugs and shower his doggie face with kisses. He and I wrestle for a while until my mother yells at me to “shut the hell up, you’ll wake your father.”

You see, my father works full-time as an embalmer, and he mostly works nights because that’s usually when people prefer to get ready for their own funerals. I don’t know. Do they? I wouldn’t know. My father tried to get me to go with him one time when I was little. He wanted me to get into the funeral home business with him – make it a family thing. But I said, “No way, José,” and we never spoke of going there together again. He does, however, try to speak of it a lot at the dinner table. Which is disgusting because who wants to hear about dead people when they’re chowin’ down on some delicious scallop potatoes? I sure don’t.

My mother has a much more pleasant job – she’s a realestate agent with some office I’ve never heard of and have to real desire to learn its name. She has worked there for the longest time – as long as I can remember – and has never gotten a raise or a promotion of any kind, which is discouraging for me when I decide to get a job.

I also plan on getting my license soon, too. So I can finally have a reason for having that crappy old pick up Chevy in the garage, so I can finally do things on my own time. It’s always on my mother’s terms that I go places, and she picks where I go. Good thing I don’t have friends, eh? Unless you count the kids from the nurse’s office. Which I shall now do.

They’re all so nice. Why can’t all people be like that? I suppose that they’re just nice because they feel bad for me because I admitted to them that I have no friends. …Yeah. I bet that’s it.