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Oregon was like a magical wonderland... except not very interesting. My dad warned us that in Oregon, like all states near California, everyone hated Californians so we had to be careful not to mention we were originally from there. My dad's new job was with a truck company and he was supposed to yell at people who didn't make their payments for parts on time. My dad loves hassling deadbeats, but he missed his first day of work because he hurt his back - which was all my fault. I wouldn't stop whining when he told me to, and he got so mad he tried to pick up a large rock to crush me with but forgot to lift with his knees. Poor daddy.

We first started out staying in a hotel. It was right next to a restaurant where we got our Thanksgiving meal of turkey and ice cream. Yummy. One day, my sister accidentally locked herself in the bathroom. What a dumb little sister. Instead of just operating the lock to let herself out, all she did was cry. I said we should leave her there, but then I needed to use the bathroom.

We soon moved into an apartment complex. I had to go back to pre-school now, while Joe foo' went back to kindergarten. This preschool gave us lunch, but it often had this lumpy white stuff called cottage cheese. Icky. We also had swimming classes there, but then afterwards I'd have to put back on my shoes and I didn't know how to tie them. The teacher tried to show me how, but it was weird and confusing. Worst of all, we had naptime in the middle of the day, but I could never fall asleep there during naptime. So I'd just have to lay there being both bored and mad. Stupid preschool.

I did learn one thing one day. The teacher had a cow puppet who told us that when we eat meat, we were eating it! I didn't know we had to kill poor cows for meat. Guess it's the cow's fault for being tasty.

Outside of pre-school, we'd have a lot of fun around the apartments. There was a pool there, and my mommy got me and Joe foo' water wings so we could swim easy like. My silly sister would just stay in the shallow end. One day me and my sister spotted a bee walking around in a circle on the cement near the pool. It just kept going around and around. I put little toy bucket on top of the bee, but, when I lifted it up again, the bee just kept walking around in a circle. I looked really closely at the bee, and couldn’t' see a stinger. Thus I concluded the bee must be harmless. So I had my sister touch it.

Boy could my sister scream really loudly. My dad, who was swimming at the time, almost drowned in panic. Apparently, unlike as shown in cartoons, a bee keeps its stinger hidden inside it most of the time. Good to know for future reference.

One day my silly sister Sarah actually had a great idea. Every morning, mom would give us a Flintstone vitamin before breakfast, and they were yummy. Sarah wanted more, so, when our mother wasn't watching, we climbed up on the counter and got the bottle of vitamins and then ate them all. We had so much nutrients inside us, we figured we were now superhumans. Mom didn't think so when she found out; instead, she called poison control. I had to take a big cup with me to preschool and constantly drink water throughout the day.

When I turned five years old, we had a big party and Mom made me a bunny cake. It looked just like a bunny, with a jellybean nose and coconut for bunny fur. God, I hate coconut. It felt so good being five – which made me old and wizened now, that I decided that five was now my favorite number.

Life was good, but one day while playing in the playground, a big furry thing came up and bit me! It was a mean old North American tree monkey, just as mean and vicious as the Alaskan snow monkey! I ran home crying.

"Mommy! A North American tree monkey bit me!"

"There is no such thing, dear," my mom scolded me.

"There is! It's true!"

"You better stop making things up, boy!" my dad told me, "And you better especially not put your made up things on some sort of world-wide electronic conveyance of information if such a thing were ever to exist, because, if you do, I'll teach you some discipline with the back of me hand!"

I could only get my brother Joe foo' to believe me. He had a plan, too: we'd shotgun the monkey to death. Dad kept about fifty shotguns in his closet, and he'd count them every night, so we'd have to be quick with one to make sure dad didn't find out. My brother's plan was that I would grab the monkey and hold him still while he blasted the monkey with the shotgun. I didn't want to grab the monkey because I was afraid he would claw and bite me, but Joe said he'd shoot the monkey quick so that wouldn't happen.

Just as we got the shotgun and were getting prepared to sneak up on the North American tree monkey, are dad found us. He was real mad. He warned us that young kids like us could get killed playing with guns, because, if he ever saw us touch his guns again, he would murder us both. My dad always had a way of explaining things in ways we could understand.

Joe and I probably would have never gotten into anymore trouble after that if it weren't for our new friend Bobby, who knew lots of things... some of it even true.

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Rating: 1.8/5 (6 votes cast)

Yvonne's Ashes
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