Dumbness is a Dish Best Served Cold (Dear Dumb Diary: Deluxe) Read online

  CHAPTER TEN

  FOR ONCE I WAS WRONG

  Everything costs WAY

  more than I guessed and

  way more than Isabella guessed, too.

  It appears as though I didn’t fully understand

  money. I knew only one thing for sure: There’s not

  enough to go around.

  When they first invented money, I’m pretty sure

  old-timey people were all excited about it.

  “Hey, we invented money! People are really

  going to love this,” one of them correctly predicted.

  “Yeah. Let’s not make enough of it,” said the

  other one with a mean laugh, and that’s pretty much

  how they left things.

  They know that we all want it, and yet for some

  messed-up reason, they won’t make enough of it.

  That’s not how the guys making turkeys see

  things. I can’t tell you exactly how many turkeys the

  world needs, but every time I’m at the grocery store, I

  see a big freezer of them wrapped up like frozen

  meteors. Without even doing the math, I’m quite

  confident that right this minute the world has at least

  seven more turkeys than we’re ever going to need.

  The guys making turkeys and the guys making

  the hundred-dollar bills need to switch jobs for

  a while.

  That brings me back to my point: If we all had

  enough money, we could each afford our own house so

  that the temptation to pitch our parents out

  the window when they got old wouldn’t be so

  overwhelming.

  Don’t get me wrong, Dumb Diary, I don’t really

  want to overpower my parents and stuff them into that

  burlap bag in the garage and drag them 1.35 miles to

  that rest home on the corner of Maple Road and Adams

  Boulevard.

  I’ve never even given it a single thought.

  But right after a huge Thanksgiving meal would

  be a good time to get them. You know, when they’re all

  fat and groggy. Right then.

  I’m starting to understand why they made all

  those turkeys.

  We’ve always known that we needed money, and

  over the years, Isabella and I have done many clever

  things to earn it.

  We sold lemonade at a little lemonade stand.

  We sold maps to where the better lemonade

  stands were.

  We sold used gross

  vintage clothing door-

  to-door. (Sorry, Isabella’s mom. She told me that you

  were going to throw it away anyway.)

  We were also professional musicians

  singing on a street corner, even though some imbecile

  with no understanding of music sent an ambulance

  to see what was wrong with us.

  But these small handfuls of pocket change don’t

  add up to much money at all

  .

  .

  .

  Not the kind of money Mr. Henzy was teaching

  us about.

  For example, you know how everybody assumes

  that horses are more expensive than cars because

  they’re prettier, and they can tell when you’re sad,

  and they try to cheer you up by nuzzling you with their

  giant heads?

  Yeah, well, it turns out that’s not the case

  AT ALL.

  Cars ridiculously cost a TON OF MONEY

  , and

  if you don’t live in a place where you can walk

  everywhere, like some Lord of the Rings place, there’s a

  pretty good chance you’re going to need one.

  Adults weirdly prefer the ugly cars.

  I went to the car dealership with my dad once

  and noticed that adults can actually SEE THE COOL

  CARS from the desk where they’re buying the ugly

  ones, but they go through with the ugly purchases

  anyway.

  Why, adults? Why do you choose the ugliest

  version of everything all the time?

  There’s also fuel, maintenance, repairs, and

  insurance (which costs a bundle), and you need all of

  those as well, which is just silly.

  What is wrong with adults?

  Mr. Henzy taught us that insurance is basically

  this deal where you bet a company that you will get in

  an accident, and they bet that you won’t.

  They charge you every single month whether you

  get into an accident or not, but if you get in one, they

  pay for the damages. Now this makes it sound like

  they’re pretty cool with you and your crashiness,

  but after each accident, they start charging you more

  and more each month for the insurance. It’s like

  they’re starting to think that maybe you’re getting into

  accidents on purpose, just for the attention.

  If you need a loan from a bank to buy the car,

  they charge you interest on the loan, and by the time

  you pay them back, the car could actually cost you

  almost twice what the actual price was in the

  first place.

  Here’s how it works: Imagine if you gave

  somebody a piece of gum, and they had to give you

  back two (new, unchewed) pieces the next day.

  You’d get an extra piece of gum for nothing. That’s

  how these loans work.

  And if you didn’t pay back the extra gum on

  time, they’d make sure that you could never borrow

  gum from anybody ever again. Also, they might come

  and take your tongue. (Truthfully, I’m really not sure

  how it would work with gum. This probably only works

  with money.)

  And that’s just for a car.

  You’re going to want someplace to live, too, and

  your antique, vitamin-gobbling parents are selfishly

  clinging to their house forever.

  Those things cost more than I ever imagined,

  and you STILL need to pay for heat, Internet, water,

  Internet, electricity, Internet, and all that other junk.

  And the stuff you buy eventually breaks.

  Unless you have somebody like my dad, who can fix

  your broken things

  —

  and then fix them again

  because he actually made them a little worse the

  first time he fixed them

  —

  you have to pay people to

  do this.

  Plus, there’s furniture and appliances and

  carpet and tons of stuff that you never even heard of.

  And that’s not counting the jillion little things.

  Like, you’ll have to buy a brush to clean your toilet

  with. Toilets don’t come with a brush, which I think

  shows how bad toilet makers are at thinking ahead.

  Seriously, toilet guys, did you think we were going to

  serve punch in these things?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  REALLY ITCHY, LIKE PORCUPINE UNDERPANTS

  One night at dinner, as I picked at Mom’s latest

  Plateful of Disaster, I asked my parents, “So,

  how much money do we have in the bank?”

  It turns out that this is a pretty interesting

  question to ask your parents at dinner. It makes them

  act like their butts itch.

  “Not enough,” Dad said.

  “Enough,” Mom said at the exact same time, as

  if they had rehearsed this.

  “Why are you asking, anywa
y?” Dad said

  suspiciously. “Did

  Isadora tell you to ask? Is she

  trying to get us to loan her money?”

  “Who’s Isadora?” I said.

  “Your best friend. Big round glasses. Hairy arms.

  Criminal.

  Isadora.”

  “ISABELLA,” I said.

  “Oh, right. Isabella.”

  My dad does this all the time with names. I’ve

  heard him call our dog “Jamie”:

  “Watch where you’re walking,” he once

  shouted helpfully to the guy delivering the pizza to

  our front door. “Jamie pooped all over the

  front yard!”

  After I made him say Isabella’s name out loud

  ten times, I explained that the reason I asked was for

  the Personal Finance thing we’re doing in math. I told

  him that we were learning how much everything costs,

  and that it amazed me that we could afford

  anything.

  Dad smiled widely. He clearly knew that this was

  one of those “teachable moments” parents are

  always looking for where you leave the door on your

  brain unlocked, so they can just stroll right in and

  leave something there.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said with a warm, fatherly

  smile, “

  we can’t. We can’t afford anything.”

  Then he went back to eating.

  I looked at Mom, and I must have appeared to be

  a bit frightened.

  “There’s more to it than that,” she said. “We

  have a house and a car and food on the table. We have

  all the things we need, and a few extras, too. Your dad

  was just fooling around.”

  Dad made a grunty sound that we both

  recognized as the sound he makes when he disagrees

  but isn’t willing to explain or argue. (We also recognize

  this sound as the one Stinker’s intestines make if he

  eats soap, but this time it came from Dad’s face.)

  I noticed that Mom looked concerned, but at the

  time, I believed it was due to her realization that she

  had married a man who occasionally sounded like

  beagle bowels.

  There was more going on below the surface than

  I knew.

  (Like with beagle bowels.)

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ATTACK OF THE LIVING BLOND

  Angeline, you might remember, Cares About

  People, which is one of the main ways she likes to

  annoy them.

  She cares about how they’re feeling, and how

  they’re doing, and how things are going.

  I SWEAR THIS IS TRUE: One time, Angeline

  asked somebody how they were, and she

  actually

  listened to their response.

  It’s not that being cared about is bad. It’s just

  that those Really Caring People make you feel bad

  about yourself because you’re not as caring.

  Being less caring like this makes you less

  annoying to others.

  Being less annoying to others makes more of

  them care about you. This, in turn, makes you feel even

  worse because now even MORE people are more

  caring than you are.

  Sometimes I think you just can’t win with nice

  people.

  Angeline always sits with us at lunch.

  Angeline could sit anywhere in the cafeteria she

  wanted, and people would run and get her anything

  she asked for

  —

  their lunches, their firstborn children,

  high-priced gum in those cool packages. No sacrifices

  would be too much to make to the Goddess of

  Popularity.

  But she sits with us.

  Because she likes us,

  she says.

  See how annoying?

  Isabella and I don’t even like us that much.

  Isabella once had a theory that Angeline’s

  popularity was like head lice and that we could catch it

  just by being close to her. She even made Angeline

  switch clothes with her at lunch one time and wear her

  beautiful blond hair tucked up under a dirty hat.

  Isabella wore Angeline’s clothes and a wig, but it

  didn’t fool anybody. We decided that if we could bottle

  and sell whatever Magical Popularity Angeline

  has going for her, we’d make a fortune.

  Privately, we agreed that we’d be willing to just

  bottle and sell Angeline.

  At some point during lunch, we became aware of

  a high- pitched sound that seemed to be coming from

  the direction of Angeline’s immaculately glossed lips.

  It turned out that she was, in fact, talking to us.

  “One of the main health issues we’re facing is

  obesity,” she began, and we groaned and

  slammed our heads against the table because

  Angeline had lectured us about this before.

  “Angeline, you’re not fat,” Isabella said, lifting

  her head from the table and adjusting her glasses, then

  adding,

  “Yet.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Angeline said. I

  could tell she was a little miffed, which is about as

  angry as Angeline gets.

  “Angeline, you talk about obesity like it actually

  affects you,” Isabella said. “

  YOU

  are not fat. So stop

  worrying about it. You won’t be fat like your mom until

  you’re her age. What is she, like, eighty-five?” Isabella

  asked, and it kind of sounded like she said that last

  word twice, probably due to the fact that Angeline’s

  mouth had fallen open as large as the entrance of a

  cave, and it was causing a mild echo.

  “My mom’s not fat,” Angeline said after the

  initial shock had worn off.

  “Okay, okay,” Isabella said. “Your mom’s

  not fat.”

  Angeline nodded angrily.

  Isabella added, “So who is that we see driving

  you to school? Your pet elephant?”

  Angeline’s mouth fell open even further than

  before. With a flashlight, I might have been able to tell

  what she had for breakfast.

  Isabella just smiled at Angeline.

  “She’s not fat, you know,” Angeline said through

  gritted, pearly teeth.

  “Of course she’s not,” Isabella said. “I was just

  kidding. It wouldn’t matter if she was. Honestly, I can’t

  think of anything that I’m less interested in than how

  much people weigh. In your mom’s case, she just

  happens to be as horribly perfect as you are. But

  here’s the thing: When thin people like you tell fat

  people that they’re fat, it doesn’t make them want to

  lose weight. It makes them want to eat you thin people.

  You’re just too perfect to talk about this subject.”

  “I’m not talking about how people look,”

  Angeline said. “I know that everybody looks different,

  and sometimes it doesn’t matter much what they eat.

  People can look good at every size. I’m talking about

  how

  healthy they are.” Angeline’s sparkling eyes

  and velvety voice cut through me like sparkling,

  velvety chainsaws. She eyed the can of root beer in

  front of me.

  “
I have an idea I want to tell you about,” she

  went on.

  I admit, I had gotten into the habit of bringing

  cans of soda pop in for lunch. (I recently learned that

  they call it POP some places, and SODA other

  places. I like using the full name because it shows how

  much I love it.)

  I knew that soda pop wasn’t the best thing for

  me. But it’s just so bubbly and refreshing, it makes you

  think that the only reason that everything isn’t

  carbonated is that Nature just never thought of it.

  I also really enjoy burping. Burps are like

  secret messages in stomach language that my

  body is sending out to the world. “Hello,” my stomach

  is probably saying, or “Hey, remember when you

  ate this?”

  And after a lifetime of dealing with my mom’s

  horrible cooking, I’ve become an expert on what flavors

  cancel out other horrible flavors. Root beer can cure a

  lot of them, including Cafeteria Chicken Taco,

  which is what they were serving that day at lunch.

  Winding up in a Cafeteria Chicken Taco is pretty much

  the worst thing that can ever happen to a chicken.

  Chickens tell one another scary stories about it

  around campfires.

  This little soda pop habit of mine made me feel

  like the target of every nutritional message anywhere,

  but I didn’t care. Coke, Pepsi, 7Up

  —

  I liked them all,

  and I was concerned that Angeline’s obesity idea might

  impact my delicious, burpy beverages.

  “And I think there may be some money in it,”

  Angeline added quietly.

  Isabella and I looked at each other and

  blinked several times as we tried to absorb this.

  Angeline was talking about doing something, not just

  for the good of the world, or the good of humanity, or

  the good of catnanity

  —

  that’s like humanity, but for

  cats (it might not really be a thing). She was talking

  about doing something for the

  cash

  .