Dear Dumb Diary #10: The Worst Things in Life Are Also Free

by Jim Benton

  pair of disapproving mimes.

  I called Isabella after dinner and asked her to

  make a list of her summer plans and bring it over

  tomorrow, so we could see whose list is better. I

  had to caution her because her list last year had a

  couple things on it that I think are illegal to even

  put on a list. Isabella says that if you write “just

  kidding” after anything you write, you can’t be

  held accountable for it.

  I’m not sure that would always work.

  19

  I’ve stayed up really, really late tonight so

  that I’ll sleep in tomorrow. I’m sure I have the

  strength, ambition, and willpower to lie

  in bed like a worthless piece of garbage till noon.

  Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Dumb

  Diary, my vegetarianism didn’t work out at dinner,

  either. Dad brought home a pepperoni pizza. But I

  choose to believe that the pepperoni was made

  from a pig that donated his body to science.

  (I know that pizzas aren’t exactly science,

  but I bet scientists eat a lot of pizza, and pizzas

  need pepperonis, and anyway, shut up.)

  20

  Wednesday 04

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I woke up at exactly the same time this

  morning as when I was using my alarm clock. I lay

  there for a looong time, trying to fall back asleep.

  Wouldn’t you think that falling asleep is the easiest

  thing a person could do? It’s like the total opposite

  of doing something hard:

  “We want you to just lie there and not

  do anything. Don’t think or talk, either.”

  “So you’re asking me not to accomplish

  anything at all?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s too much to ask.”

  21

  Isabella came over at lunch. We had a

  vegetarian lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches,

  which my mom didn’t ruin because Isabella made

  them. Isabella’s mom is an incredible cook, so

  Isabella must have inherited her mother’s instincts

  for making cheese sandwiches in the way cows

  inherit the instinct to make cheese.

  I know what you’re thinking, Dumb Diary:

  Some vegetarians don’t eat cheese. Those are

  called vegans. But I can’t be that. I’m the kind of

  vegetarian that does eat cheese and some meat

  but not meat for every single meal every single day.

  So for certain temporary periods of time I’m a

  vegetarian. I think maybe I’m a vegetempian.

  22

  One of my all-time favorite things to do in the

  summer is go to the zoo, but Isabella refuses to go

  anymore because of the warthog.

  A warthog, Dumb Diary, is a pig that didn’t

  feel it was ugly enough just being a pig, so it went

  the extra distance and became smaller, and

  wartier, with a knobby face and tusks and a

  scraggly mane and very unpleasant attitude.

  The warthog at our zoo is named Loverboy.

  It’s Isabella’s favorite animal, and always has been.

  When we were little and went to the zoo, she would

  run all the way to the warthog’s enclosure.

  23

  But Loverboy is old now, and he never wants

  to come out of his little cave because they say

  the sun bothers him. So now we can’t go to the zoo

  because Isabella won’t go unless she can see the

  warthog, and everybody knows it.

  But I got her to make a list of things that she

  does want to do this summer. You’ll notice that

  many of these are in no way illegal.

  24

  Tomorrow, we plan to get started doing things

  on the list. I told Isabella I’d call her when I woke

  up, which is going to be right around noon.

  25

  Thursday 05

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I woke up even earlier today than I usually do.

  Stinker and Stinkette were fast asleep; my parents

  were fast asleep; the rest of the world was fast

  asleep except for people that unwisely chose

  jobs that make you get up early, like policemen.

  Now that I think about it, that must mean crooks

  get up really early, too. Otherwise, why would the

  police be up? Strange. Crooks strike me as the type

  that would sleep in.

  They say the early bird gets the worm — they

  never said that he pays for it.

  26

  My mom dropped me off at Isabella’s today.

  We hung around outside most of the time because

  her mean older brothers were inside playing video

  games and, according to Isabella, plotting some

  sort of horrible scheme against her and trying on

  pretty dresses.

  They weren’t really trying on pretty dresses.

  Isabella just likes to yell that loud enough for the

  neighbors to hear. She goes out of her way to make

  her brothers unhappy. She often asks herself, “What

  would make my brothers unhappy?” So she won’t

  forget, she sometimes wears a bracelet that she

  made with the letters WWMMBU on it.

  27

  As we reviewed our List of Summer Excellence,

  we realized that every single thing on it was going to

  cost money.

  I have a little bit of money in the bank, but

  my parents won’t let me touch that. It’s supposed

  to help pay for my college education one day, where

  I will learn the skills I need to earn the money I’ll

  need to pay back all the money I borrowed for the

  college education.

  28

  Isabella asked her mom for money, but since

  Isabella’s mom has THREE children, and she is

  therefore three times meaner than a mom with only

  one, she said no. We tried to escape the room as

  soon as we saw her mouth begin to form ADULT

  WISDOM, but she’s fast and hit us with, “You

  know, girls, the best things in life are free.”

  “Like money?” Isabella asked. “So, like, free

  money. Free money would be one of the best things

  in life, right?”

  Isabella really excels at this sort of question,

  so her mom really excels at answering them.

  “Go outside,” she said.

  29

  Isabella stayed on the free money theme for

  a while. She said that her brothers have money, but

  explained that getting it for free could be a little

  inconvenient. According to Isabella, it could end up

  with me having to chew off a leg in order to free

  myself from whatever trap they had set. (That’s

  right. “Inconvenient” is how she describes leg

  removal by chewing.)

  I could see in her eyes that their money

  haunted her. If I were them, I would probably take a

  few precautions to protect it. Like that giant three-

  headed dog from

  Harry Potter

  .

  30

  Friday 06

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Monday was the last day of school, but

  people who work at the school are there a few days

  longer than the kids.

  I
suspect they are there to finish our report

  cards, and to crate up the mean teachers and ship

  them to Teacher Island where they live for the

  summer, preying on one another in some kind of

  savage eat -or-be -eaten jungle environment.

  Or, you know, just the report cards.

  31

  The reason I even brought this up was

  because yesterday was my Aunt Carol’s last day at

  the school, and she stopped over for lunch when she

  was done. She asked how my vacation was going,

  because this is the sort of thing adults ask when

  they can’t think of something interesting to say.

  I told her about my List of Summer

  Excellence and how it was looking a little too

  spendy.

  Aunt Carol told me that she and my mom

  used to do little jobs like babysit, rake leaves, or

  walk dogs for money. Then she said that my mom

  used to steal cars and sell them for money, too, but

  she only said that to upset my mom. (Aunt Carol

  may be secretly wearing a WWMMSU bracelet.)

  Then my mom said Aunt Carol used to charge

  people five cents to clean out their trash cans with

  her face.

  Then Aunt Carol said that right afterward,

  she would pay my mom a dollar to lick all the

  garbage flavor off her cheeks.

  Even though this was all getting pretty

  ridiculous, I think they may have given me at least

  one pretty good idea: Never have a sister.

  32

  Saturday 07

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I went five whole days without seeing or

  hearing from Angeline. I was beginning to get used

  to it. It’s true that I have learned to overlook many

  of Angeline’s flaws, like her flawlessness,

  but she can still be difficult to be around. Like

  when she’s lit perfectly, for example.

  To my extreme credit, I have learned to

  pretend to ignore Angeline’s failure to not be

  perfect. So when Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan (the

  assistant principal at my school) brought Angeline

  over today, I didn’t ask my attack dogs — Stinker

  and Stinkette — to bite her, or sit near her with their

  epic ugliness and demonic fragrances, or

  dribble their putrid froth on her, which might be

  worse than being bitten.

  33

  Angeline was all excited and told me and

  Isabella how much she had missed us this week.

  We made grunting sounds in response, which got

  Angeline all happy and chirpy because evidently we

  accidentally said, “Yeah! Us, too!” Maybe we did. I

  don’t know, I don’t speak Blondese.

  Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan sat down and

  smiled and said they had something they wanted to

  share with us. Evidently, that often means “We’re

  having a baby,” because my mom exploded into this

  screaming volcano of laughter and hugged them

  and hugged me and hugged Stinker, which scared

  him and made him pee. And she started asking

  when

  and couldn’t stop grinning.

  34

  At least that’s what “We have

  something to tell you” means sometimes,

  but not this time. This time it meant that Aunt Carol

  and Uncle Dan were planning a trip to Screamotopia

  Amusement Park and wanted to know if Angeline,

  Isabella, and I wanted to go. This set off a secondary

  screaming volcano of laughter. We hugged them

  and hugged one another and hugged Stinker, which

  made him pee again. Then we started asking

  when

  when when

  and we couldn’t stop grinning. If you do

  the math, you’ll notice that New Baby to Mom=

  Amusement Park to Girl.

  But since my Uncle Dan is an assistant

  principal — a tricky creature by nature — there

  was a catch. They explained it while we were

  spanking Stinker for peeing.

  35

  If we could raise the money for Screamotopia

  admission, Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan would drive us

  there and pick up the cost of the hotel so we could

  stay overnight. I love hotels. They’re like

  magical apartments where you can dump a milk

  shake in the tub, and when you get back later, elves

  will have cleaned it all up.

  My mom said okay, but she was a little mad

  that Aunt Carol hadn’t talked to her BEFORE she

  told us. (When mom said “BEFORE,” she actually

  said it IN ALL CAPITALS like that. Moms can

  speak IN ALL CAPITALS when they want.)

  Here’s the hard part: We’ll need a hundred

  dollars apiece, and we only have about three weeks

  to raise it.

  36

  Angeline’s mom had already told Uncle Dan it

  was okay. We called Isabella’s mom on speaker-

  phone and she said it was okay, too. She joked that

  we should take Isabella’s brothers and dad as well,

  and then there was a long silence.

  It was one of those jokes where nobody laughs.

  37

  Uncle Dan added the rule that we could not

  just ask family members to give or lend us the

  money. We agreed to the deal, and Uncle Dan made

  us shake on it with him. I never really realized how

  tiny my hand was until I saw it suffocated inside a

  big manly let’s- make-a- deal handshake. I wonder if

  I could make money off business ladies who share

  this problem, by selling a line of business- lady oven

  mitts to help remedy Tiny-Lady-Hand-

  Handshake Syndrome.

  We decided that the three of us will get

  together tomorrow and earn hundreds of dollars. I

  told them my intensely revolutionary idea to make

  money. I don’t want to say too much right now, but

  it’s a brand- new way to bring the intense and much-

  desired refreshments of indoors to an intensely

  outdoor and intensely convenient location where

  the customer will pay intensely for them. Isabella

  and Angeline agreed that the idea is so terrific

  and intense that we should start thinking about

  how we’re going to spend all the extra money

  we’ll make.

  38

  Sunday 08

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Isabella slept over last night. This morning

  started with me asking my dad to drive us to the

  store to buy the stuff we needed to make money.

  Dad immediately objected, partly because I

  woke up way too early again and it’s a Sunday. But

  mostly because it required the spending of money

  and the moving of a butt on a Sunday morning. This

  is the day Dad traditionally sets aside to avoid

  moving his.

  Other people’s butts and money are not a

  problem for Dad, but he’s pretty picky about HIS

  butt and HIS money and, in particular, separating

  one from the other.

  39

  Thankfully, Mom started writing a list of

  chores that needed to be done around the house.

  When Dad heard the sound of Mom’s angry little

  pencil scratching out a list, he dragged us out
to

  the car with a level of panic that I knew meant he

  would be willing to push it to the store if he had to.

  We bought cups and powdered lemonade mix

  and a new plastic pitcher because our old one has a

  handle with chew marks on it. They were put there

  by me when I was a baby. It turns out that babies,

  with their fat legs, short arms, and desire to

  chew, are pretty much just miniature, blubbery

  Tyrannosaurus rexes on a never-ending hunt

  for wounded young triceratops — or plastic

  household items — to gnaw on.

  40

  By the time Angeline showed up, I had

  already made my GRAND OPENING sign for

  our lemonade stand. We’d finally decided to call it

  IJA Lemonade, a name created by using our

  first initials, which I don’t think really reflected the

  entire scope of my vision for our establishment.

  We stood out on my front lawn all afternoon,

  trying to get somebody to buy our lemonade. I’m

  confident that the cars that sped by at 40 miles per

  hour would have at least slowed down to consider

  making a beverage purchase at Lemon-o -

  tastical-abulous Vegetarian Lemonade.

  (That’s what I wanted to call it, but Isabella

  wouldn’t go for it on the grounds that it was

  stupid.) They might have even ordered something

  off the light lunch menu that I prepared.

  41

  We were so desperate that I even ALMOST

  hoped that Mrs. Ryan across the street would bring

  over her crazy triplet sons. They’re two years old,

  but they are as wild and screamy as baboons.

  (Mrs. Ryan always looks as though she just woke

  up from sleeping in a car trunk.)

  Finally, after three full hours, we had our first

  customer. Cigarette Lady and her little grandson

  were out for a walk and he begged her to stop for a

  lemonade.

  I don’t know Cigarette Lady’s real name, but

  she always smells like cigarettes. One time when my