by Jim Benton
rat
like that because of its offensiveness to rats. If
you are a real rat and reading this right now, no
offense. Also, let go of my diary because — again,
no offense — you really are a kind of horrible dirty
filthy rodent. But congratulations on learning how
to read!
Now drop my book.
93
Wednesday 18
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella is becoming some kind of genius
student. She is way into this report of hers on Baron
Von Leash.
She came over AGAIN today to take Stinker
for his walk. Stinker is really getting used to it
because when he saw her he started jumping up and
down. But he is so fat, he mostly jumps down.
As Isabella and Stinker were breezing out
the door, I told her about Aunt Carol and Uncle
Assistant Principal Devon to see if she would help
me get the wedding canceled, but she said to
forget it because she likes how she looks in the
bridesmaid’s dress.
Then, when I offered to go with her and
Stinker so she wouldn’t get lost AGAIN, she said
no and that she probably would get lost again
today so don’t come looking for them if they don’t
come back for a while. And don’t freak out if Stinker
is all dirty and scruffy when they get back.
94
I wanted to tell Mom about Aunt Carol and
Uncle Assistant Principal Devon, but she’s too
happy about this wedding. And since there are
only four or five things that make moms happy, I
couldn’t bring myself to do it.
(The truth is, most things make moms angry.)
95
And BTW ( that stands for By The Way),
Isabella did get lost, and Stinker was all dirty and
messed up again. It was just as she had amazingly
predicted.
96
Thursday 19
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella and I were eating lunch today. Meat
loaf. Meat loaf is what they always do to us on
Thursday.
Now don’t get me wrong. Not all meat loaf is
bad. Isabella’s Mom makes this unbelievable meat
loaf that is so delicious, it’s probably the second
best thing a cow could wish for. (Best thing cow
could wish for: NOT being meat loaf .)
97
I was so focused on being intensely mad at
Uncle Assistant Principal Devon for making my aunt
cry, that eating good food would have been all
wrong. The meat loaf was a perfect choice of dish to
accompany that kind of rage.
Like, you know how there are some foods
that, while you eat them, you just can’t stay mad,
like those ice- cream cones that they make to look
like clowns? I couldn’t stay mad if they gave us
those for lunch. Nobody could.
Maybe for our next war, we should drop those
on both sides.
98
Anyway, Aunt Carol and Uncle Assistant
Principal Devon walked past our table, and Isabella
decided to cleverly drop hints to them about the
crying incident.
“Why were you crying in the office the other
day?” she cleverly hinted. And the cleverness of her
hint made me cleverly choke a little.
99
Aunt Carol said, “Just nerves, Isabella.
Weddings can do that to people. It was some silly
thing I can’t even remember now.” Then she started
to walk away, followed by Uncle Assistant Principal
Devon.
Here’s where I thought:
I see. It’s all clear as
can be. Okay, well, I guess we can drop it now.
100
But as they turned to leave, Isabella grabbed
Uncle Assistant Principal Devon’s sleeve and added,
like a person who was not dropping it now, “Good.
Because I really want to wear that dress, even if
Jamie hates hers.”
Yup, cafeteria meat loaf was actually the
PERFECT dish to go with today’s conversation.
101
Luckily, Aunt Carol did not hear Isabella.
I know, because Mom was not insane when I got
home, and she would have been if Aunt Carol had
called her with that little tidbit.
102
Friday 20
Dear Dumb Diary,
When I got home, I found a big present on
my bed from Aunt Carol. Evidently, there are a
lot of presents given around weddings, and it’s
hard to argue with a policy like that while you’re
unwrapping one.
103
Here’s the note that came with it (I couldn’t
help but notice that she had placed the “flies” in
the correct position):
104
Since the bridesmaid dresses are so
barftastic, I was afraid of how this new
dress was going to look on me, but incredibly, I
looked pretty good in it. Aunt Carol had all my
measurements, so it fit perfectly.
It’s a really simple dress, and it’s a deep
chocolaty brown, like the way chocolate stuff looks
on menus.
It was like something Miss Anderson would
wear, and I have to admit that I looked better than
pretty good in it. I looked much much better than
pretty good. I looked beautiful and elegant at
the same time, like if a chocolate rainbow and a
chocolate chandelier had a baby.
I practiced the following beautiful moves in it:
105
I had it going on, Dumb Diary, and when we
got to the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner, the
going- on just kept on going. Isabella had the exact
same outfit, but she didn’t look any better than me.
And even Angeline only looked much better, instead
of much much much much much much
better, which is how you would have expected
Angeline to impolitely look.
106
It turns out that a rehearsal is really just a
nice dinner at which they tell us where to stand and
where it is not okay to fart during the wedding.
Answer: On the bride’s left.
Rehearsal dinners are usually held the night
before the wedding, but they couldn’t do it then.
Because Uncle Assistant Principal Devon has to
chaperone the dance. So we did it a week before.
Uncle Assistant Principal Devon had some
of his friends there, who, surprisingly, are not
teachers or other principals. I assumed that school
people always hung out together, like buffalo or
something.
These guys are his best man and groomsmen,
and their job is to escort us down the aisle and hit
anybody that makes fun of me in my bridesmaid’s
dress.
Right away I chose the biggest, ugliest
groomsman because I figured he would make me
look a little better.
The guests will be all like, “Wow, doesn’t
Jamie look only a little bit ghastly when compared
to that Bigfoot who’s walking her down the aisle ?”
107
We also met Aun
t Carol’s maid of honor,
Betsy. Suddenly, I realized exactly how those
dresses were chosen: with Betsy’s help.
Betsy is naturally shaped exactly like the
bridesmaid’s dress, and even her regular clothes
had little bridesmaidy touches here and there.
People, we really need to work harder to put
an end to Frill Abuse.
Betsy is kind of pink- faced all the time and
giggles a lot. You can just tell she’s one of those
people who wraps presents with extra ribbon and
has decorative soaps.
108
All evening everybody went over all the
wedding details. They went over and over everything.
It was all, “You walk in like this,” and “You
stand like that,” and “Don’t chew gum,” and “Make
sure you go to the bathroom first,” and “Blah blah
blah.”
By the time we were done, I have to say I did
NOT understand why people get married. There is
just too much work involved.
I’m pretty sure that if they made divorces
this complicated, more people would stay together
out of pure laziness.
Here’s how I think the Divorce Ceremony
should go:
109
Saturday 21
Dear Dumb Diary,
I was all prepared to not look beautiful
today, but that didn’t happen.
I had totally forgotten that we had to go
to Aunt Carol’s bridal shower — which is another
opportunity for the bride to delicately slobber up
a bunch of extra presents before the wedding at
which she’ll slobber up a whole mountain of them.
As it turns out, brides are so beautiful
that just being around them can infect you with
Gorgeousness. Before I knew it, I had to get all
dolled up again.
110
They held the bridal shower over at Betsy’s
house (the maid of honor who is made of ruffles).
Guess what? Her whole house looks like it’s made
out of bridesmaids’ dresses.
It’s like a Museum of ADORABLENESS.
There are DARLING little lace doilies under
everything and countless little statues of precious
children and poodles with their heads cocked
adorably. No matter what you think about
Betsy, she is probably the world’s total expert on
CUTENESS, although that’s a pretty dumb thing
to be an expert on.
111
Of course, Angeline HAD to bring a photo of
her little Stickybuns to show everybody. And yes,
it DID have its head cocked like a professional
ceramic statue, but I don’t think we can rule out the
possibility that Angeline held it in that position with
tape and wire just for the photo.
112
Sunday 22
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella came by AGAIN to do some leash
research with Stinker. I’ve never seen Stinker
happier to see somebody. They were out for
hours, and Stinker came back all dirty and scruffy
again, but I guess that’s the price he must pay for
Education.
I haven’t even figured out what to do my
diorama about yet. I’m starting to worry that,
next to Isabella’s, mine is going to look less like a
dioRAMA and more like a dioREEYA.
113
I was glad that Isabella didn’t hang around
because I had to practice for my after- dance
Tacos of Devotion with Hudson.
Like all normal people, I love tacos, but they
are designed more to mouthfully enjoy than to
appear lovely while eating. In fact, there are
five main foods that were dumbly designed to
lower your attractiveness while eating:
1. Popcorn (The only food eaten by
packing entire mouth totally full
before chewing .)
2. Watermelon (Lots of slobbery horking
and spitting. The only food eaten the
same way by monkeys and people .)
114
3. Spaghetti (Lots of slurping and
leaning over plate in doglike posture.
Occasional hair-in- sauce issues.
Difficult not to look like animal eating
shoelaces.)
4. Peel -and- eat shrimp (Lots of looking
like you’re eating world -record-
sized bugs .)
5. Tacos (Lots of crippled -neck postures,
and ingredients exploding everywhere.
Can be noisy enough inside mouth to
make hearing conversation difficult.)
115
Angeline would NOT have a problem with
taco- eating. She could slurp a greasy tarantula out
of an ash tray and make it look like she was eating
a chocolate-covered strawberry.
But I have to practice, practice, practice.
We didn’t have any taco shells in the house,
so I just folded slices of toast and filled them
with lettuce and corn flakes to represent Basic
Taco Anatomy. I spent some time looking in a
mirror and watching myself try to eat them without
spewing ingredients everywhere or looking like I was
missing my neckbones.
116
At first, I wasn’t sure I could eat them
gracefully, but after some planning and a lot of
practice, I finally realized that now I’m sure I can’t
do it gracefully.
I’m getting a burrito.
117
Monday 23
Dear Dumb Diary,
So today, out of the blue, Isabella says to
me, “Hey, Jamie. If one day some ugly tree in your
backyard was covered with a whole bunch of ugly
snakes, and your mom and dad didn’t want them,
you’d give one to me, right?”
The correct answer to this question is, of
course, “Yes.” Unless it’s being asked by Isabella,
in which case, experience has taught me to run all
the way to the office and ask to phone home.
118
After ten minutes of begging, I fi nally got my
mom to go outside and look for snakes. She said
there were none and don’t call home from school
unless it’s really important.
If Isabella says the words “snakes” and “in
your backyard” in the same sentence, trust me: It’s
really important. But Mom doesn’t know Isabella
like I do, so she couldn’t fully grasp the severity of
the situation.
119
When I saw Isabella later, she asked me the
question again and I told her that I didn’t really
understand why she would ask me about snakes in
my yard.
“Okay. Let me rephrase the question,” she
said. “Let’s say you bite into a burrito and a bunch
of spiders crawl out. Would you let me have one?”
OMG! Does she know about the Tacos
of Devotion I’m having with Hudson? Darn
it, Isabella — WE WEREN’T BFFS WHEN I
ACCEPTED THE INVITATION!
And now I can’t even order a burrito.
120
Tuesday 24
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today I saw Angeline tearing down my da
nce
poster.
Of course, she SAID she was putting it
back up because the tape had given out. She could
have been telling the truth, I suppose, because my
glitterwork IS robust.
She pointed at a little bare spot. “This could
use a touch-up,” she said. “Do you have any more
of the gold glitter you used here?”
Does she know? OMG! Sparkling Gold
is the name of the glitter in Stinker’s “earrings.”
Is she toying with me?
121
Wednesday 25
Dear Dumb Diary,
I practiced taco-eating again today, even
though I felt like I was a lost cause. Nothing short
of a miracle was going to help me become a master
taco eater.
I set up my little pretend tacos in front of the
mirror and thought long and hard about how I was
going to do this. And when I went to take a bite,
I spotted my cute self in the mirror — WITH MY
HEAD COCKED.
122
It was a miracle! It was like a vision of Betsy
came to me, and she was a chubby, bigheaded
angel, wearing a poofy dress made of doilies and
holding a bigheaded poodle puppy that was also an
angel. They both had their heads cocked and they
were both eating tacos.
I didn’t really see this, but this is probably
what I would have seen if I was a vision-having-
type-person.
123
With my head in the pre-taco position, I
looked exactly like one of Betsy’s adorable little
figurines. I made my eyes bigger and was suddenly
so preciously cute and innocent that I almost
pooped.
In that moment, just before I take a bite
of taco, I am posed in the most adorable pose in
the known universe. And even if the taco explodes
into a cloud of ingredients, once I take a bite, the