Planet Tad

by Tim Carvell

Today’s the end of Daylight Savings Time, and like I do every year, I accidentally set my watch forward, instead of backward, so I spent most of the day two hours off. I always get that “Spring forward, fall back” thing wrong, because it seems like, if you’ve just sprung forward, then you’re more likely to fall forward. Go ahead—try it. Jump forward and see which way you fall.

  See?

  That’s why I’ve been trying to come up with my own way to remember how Daylight Savings works. Here’s one:

  “Coiled springs hold lots of power, go ahead and add an hour.

  When you fall, you’ll hurt your back, so an hour you should subtract.”

  I realize that one’s a little long, though. Here’s a shorter one I came up with:

  “Spring flowers? Add an hour.

  Fall snacks? An hour back.”

  I know that the “snacks” part doesn’t make sense. I’m still working on it.

  We’re studying Greek myths in class now. Today, we learned about Medusa, whose face could turn anyone who looked at it into stone. What I can’t figure out is how everyone discovered that fact. It’s not like you could see Medusa turn someone into stone—if you were there, then you were turned into stone, too. And if you weren’t there, and showed up later, how would you be able to figure out that the reason all your friends were now statues was that they’d looked at Medusa? I guess maybe, one time, someone was in the next room when his friends went in to see Medusa, and his friends shouted something like, “Here comes Medusa! She’s coming this way! She’s rounding the corner! We’re just about to see her! Oh, wow, she’s hideou—” And then the guy figured out, after the fact, “Oh, looking at Medusa turns you into stone.”

  Yeah. That must be what happened.

  My dad’s been teaching me to play chess. It’s a strange game. I kind of can’t concentrate on playing it, because I just keep picturing this weird kingdom where castles keep moving sideways, bishops are always walking diagonally, and horses can only gallop in L-shapes.

  I was flipping around on cable today and caught a bit of Star Trek: The Next Generation and then some of the last movie they did, and y’know what? That robot got old.

  Today in class, they passed out the order forms for school pictures. I brought it home, and my mom said, “Well, Tad, you want to give it another try this year?”

  I have a bad history with school pictures. I’ve never gotten a good one. In first grade, I got distracted by a noise when the picture was taken, so it’s just a blurry picture of the back of my head. In second grade, I was chewing on my pen that morning and it burst open, so my face is covered with a big ink blot. In third grade, I sneezed right when the camera went off. In fourth grade, I wore a shirt the same color as the background, so it looks like a picture of a floating head. In fifth grade, I had the hiccups when the picture was taken, so I’m all blurry. In sixth grade, I had an allergic reaction to the free comb the photographer gave everyone, and my eyes got so puffy, I could barely see. In seventh grade, I had a bloody nose earlier that day, so my shirt is covered in blood. (My dad calls the photo “your mug shot.”) So at this point, my mom just checks the box for the smallest package of photos they offer—one 5 x 3 photo and four wallet-sized photos. “If they’re good, we’ll order more,” she said.

  But this is going to be the year I have a good school picture. I can just feel it. I’m going to get a haircut this weekend, and it’s going to look great.

  Stupid Supercuts. I went to get my hair cut today, and at first it was really nice, ’cause there was a TV above the barber’s chair, so I could watch it while my barber cut my hair. It was only toward the end of the haircut that I realized my barber was watching the TV, too. So instead of what I asked for—which was short on the sides and long on top—I got a haircut that was short on the left side and long on the right. It made my head look lopsided. It was so bad, the only thing I could do was ask the barber to take the clippers and make it short all over. I also asked him to turn off the TV while he did it.

  Anyway. Now I have a buzz cut. It’s OK, though—I’ll just wear a hat in my photo.

  Well, there are two bad things about my new haircut: One, my head is really, really cold. And two, as June Chen pointed out in front of everyone today at lunch, without much hair on my head, you can totally see that I have a huge unibrow. She said I look like Bert from Sesame Street, which would be mean if it weren’t kind of true.

  I’ve got to fix this before Friday.

  Here is some advice: If you are going to try to get rid of a unibrow, don’t just take a razor and shave down the middle of it, because you’ll probably cut off more than you mean to, and then you’ll try to even it up on one side, and then you’ll realize you cut too much on that side and need to even it up on the other side, and one thing will lead to another and then you’ll have no eyebrows.

  Here is some more advice: If you’ve semi-accidentally shaved your eyebrows off, don’t try to draw them on with a Sharpie, because even if you do a really good job, people will notice and make fun of you. Also, it takes forever to wash your fake eyebrows off.

  So today was picture day, and I showed up wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. The photographer told me I wasn’t allowed to wear them in the picture, so I took them off. And then he looked at me and said, “Do you have some sort of a disease?” And I said, “No. I have a bad haircut and I shaved off my eyebrows sort of by accident.” And he leaned over and whispered, “Um … do you want me to accidentally leave the lens cap on for your photo?” And I said, “That’d be great.” So here’s how I’ll look in this year’s yearbook:

  The sad thing is, I think it may be my best school photo ever.

  “Two scoops of raisins” sounds really impressive until you realize that they never say how big the scoops are. What if the scoops are super tiny, and only hold one raisin each?

  In biology today, we learned that raccoons are nocturnal animals, so if you see one in daylight, it probably has rabies. Then, when I got home, Sophie was watching Pocahontas. It really changes that movie if, the whole time, you keep thinking, “Man, that raccoon’s totally going to bite her face off any second now.”

  You know who I feel bad for? The second-to-last airbender. Because I bet he was probably really good at bending air, and nobody ever even talks about him.

  I wonder how seals got to be named “seals,” while sea lions got the name “sea lion.” “Sea lion” is such a better name than “seal.” I like to imagine that when all the animals were picking out names, the seals went first, and they said, “We want to be called seals!” And they were pretty happy with that, until the ‘sea lions’ turn came, and they were like, “We’re going with ‘sea lions’!” And the seals were all like, “Wait: You can do that? Just choose a cool animal and put ‘sea’ in front of it? Can we be sea eagles?” But the animal-naming committee was like, “It’s too late, we’ve moved on to these guys over here. What do you want to be called?” And the sea horses were like, “Sea horses!”

  Today was Thanksgiving, and I’m stuffed with turkey. Dinner was good: My aunt Pam and uncle Owen came over, and my mom made turkey and cranberry sauce and stuffing and green-bean casserole and sweet potatoes, all of which I hate eating on any day of the year but Thanksgiving. I guess Thanksgiving’s supposed to be just like the first meal the Pilgrims ate with the Native Americans, but I’m not sure whether the Pilgrims or the Native Americans brought the marshmallows for the sweet potatoes or the canned onions for the green-bean casserole.

  After dinner, my uncle Owen said, “Do you want to play a little football?” So I went into the living room, turned on the Wii, and put in Madden NFL, but it turned out, he wanted to play real football, with, like, a ball in the yard. I’d never really thrown a football around much before. It’s kind of hard, and boring, and there are no cheat codes to help you throw it better. I don’t get the point of it.

  I don’t get why they’re Alvin and the Chipmunks. Alvin is a chipmunk. It should be Alvin and the Two Other Chip
munks. Or maybe The Three Chipmunks.

  (I know it’s not the biggest logical problem in a movie about three singing chipmunks. But still, it bothers me.)

  Today, I got into an argument with Chuck about how to pronounce “Minute Maid,” as in “Minute Maid orange juice.” I said it’s pronounced “minitt,” as in, the thing that there are sixty of in an hour, and he said it’s pronounced “mih-nyoot,” as in, something that’s really tiny. I told him that was stupid, and why would anyone name their orange juice for a tiny cleaning woman? And he said, well, if it’s pronounced “minute” as in “a minute of time,” then what’s a “minute maid”? Someone who cleans up after you, but only for sixty seconds?

  I hate to admit it, but he sort of had a point.

  This morning, I saw my neighbor Mr. Baxter packing up his car for a trip. He said he was going to drive up to the lake this weekend to go ice fishing, which is weird, because it’s pretty easy to make ice at home.

  December

  There’s a weekend-long James Bond marathon on TV, and I watched some of it with my dad today. Here’s what I wonder about James Bond: I get that he has a license to kill. But what do you have to go through to get it? I like to think that first, you have to have a learner’s permit to kill. Like, you can go around killing people, but your mom or dad have to come with you. And then maybe there’s a written portion, where you have to answer a lot of multiple-choice questions about when it is and isn’t okay to kill. And if they catch you killing while you’re drunk, they can take away your license, and then you have to ask a friend to do all your killing for you. That must suck.

  I watched a little more James Bond with my dad. It cracks me up that one of the villains is this guy:

  Because if he’s got a cat on his lap, that means that somewhere nearby in his evil lair, there’s got to be a litter box.

  In social studies, we’re learning about how America got started from thirteen colonies. I can’t believe anyone would start a country with thirteen of anything—it’s just unlucky. If you ask me, they should’ve either added a colony or kicked one of them out—probably Delaware.

  Today in social studies, Mr. Rao started off by telling us that today is the sixty-fifth anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Doug Spivak raised his hand and said that Pearl Harbor came out in the summer, but Mr. Rao explained that he was talking about the actual attack on Pearl Harbor, not the movie. And then Doug said, “Wait: The stuff in Pearl Harbor really happened?” And Mr. Rao said yes, it really happened. And Doug said, “Well, what about Armageddon? Did that really happen, too?” And Mr. Rao said no, that one was fake.

  And so then for about five minutes, Doug listed movies, and Mr. Rao told him whether the stuff in them really happened or not. (Zorro: No. The Alamo: Yes. Saving Private Ryan: Yes and no. Pirates of the Caribbean: No. Dodgeball: No. National Treasure: No.) When Doug asked about Raiders of the Lost Ark, Mr. Rao refused to answer any more questions.

  If you think about it, tater tot is a bad name for a food, because it suggests that you’re eating potato babies.

  It’s a Wonderful Life is on TV today. If it’s true that every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings, then I don’t understand why Clarence goes to so much trouble to help Jimmy Stewart. It seems like he could just as easily get his wings the next time a handbell choir performs.

  I really don’t understand why any baseball team would choose to name themselves the Anaheim Angels. That’s like calling yourself “the Anaheim Dead People.”

  There was an assembly today where we all had to listen to the kids in the choir sing Christmas songs, plus one Hanukkah song and one song about Kwanzaa. They sang “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and I started thinking about the reindeer games they wouldn’t let Rudolph play. What kind of games would reindeer play? They walk around on all four of their limbs, so it’s not like they can catch or throw anything. And they certainly can’t play tag, because their antlers are so pointy. I suppose they could play board games or something, so long as they could pick up their playing pieces with their mouths and maybe throw the dice by rolling them around in their mouths and spitting them out. If that’s what they were doing, I don’t feel all that sorry for Rudolph, because board games are kind of lame.

  In English class, we read the story “The Gift of the Magi,” which is about this woman who sells her hair to buy her husband a watch chain for Christmas—only he’s sold his watch to buy her combs for her hair. And the moral of the story is that it’s better to give than to receive, although to me, the bigger news in the story is, some people buy hair. That’s so weird.

  I’ve been thinking about it, and I think a good story would be “The Birthday Gift of the Magi.” It’s about a woman who sells her hair to buy her husband a watch chain, and he’s like, “Oh, hey … thanks,” and then he doesn’t give her anything, because it’s not her birthday. And they both just sort of sit there, feeling kind of awkward.

  We’re doing Secret Santa in my homeroom. We picked names yesterday, and I got Aaron Reynolds, who used to beat me up and give me wedgies in elementary school. Luckily, Chuck got Patricia Ortiz, who I’ve kind of liked since sixth grade, and he agreed to swap names with me. So now I have to figure out what to get Patricia that:

  A) she’ll really like, and

  B) costs under $10, ’cause that’s the limit they set.

  Which sucks, ’cause you can’t really get anyone anything good for ten bucks. Chuck pointed out that you can get ten small chilis at Wendy’s for $10, but I don’t think that’s the sort of thing you want to unwrap from your Secret Santa.

  Chuck’s mom took us to the mall today so we could find our Secret Santa stuff. I was thinking of getting Patricia a tiny bottle of perfume or something, but I couldn’t find any bottles that didn’t cost, like, eight times what we’re allowed to spend. Also, the salespeople at JCPenney were spraying samples on people, and Chuck kept getting hit by them, so he really wanted to leave. I can’t blame him. He was beginning to smell like one of my mom’s magazines.

  We went through the rest of the mall and didn’t find anything for Patricia, but at Best Buy, Chuck found a discount bin of $10 DVDs, so we tried to find the one Aaron Reynolds was least likely to want. I hope he enjoys Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde.

  After school, Chuck and I went downtown to do more shopping. We didn’t find anything for Patricia, and we looked everywhere—even Victoria’s Secret. Actually, we didn’t really think we’d find anything for Patricia there—we just liked having an excuse to see what the inside of the store was like.

  I asked if they could help me find something for one of my classmates, and the saleslady said, “Is this your girlfriend?” and I said, “No, just a girl in my class.” And the saleslady said, “There is nothing here you should buy for her.”

  So tomorrow’s the Secret Santa exchange, and I really needed to buy Patricia’s gift today, so Chuck and I had his older sister take us to the super-nice mall on the other side of town. I wound up getting her present at the Godiva chocolate place. The smallest box they had was $15, but it looked tiny and only had, like, three chocolates in it, so I wound up getting her the one that costs $30. It’s more than I’m spending on any member of my family, but then again, I don’t really want to ask any of them out.

  Today was the big gift exchange. We all dropped our presents in a box, and then they were handed out. Chuck got a copy of the third Harry Potter book, which had clearly been read by whoever gave it to him. I got a note saying that my Santa didn’t have time to buy anything, and that he’d give me $10 later. Meanwhile, Patricia opened up her present and was all like, “Oh, chocolate! Great! Someone’s trying to make me break out and get fat.” So Aaron offered to swap his DVD with her. And she was all, “Oh, that’s so sweet of you! I love this movie! Thank you so so so so much!” And then it came time for everyone to tell each other who their Secret Santa was, and I told Patricia, and she kind of said, “Uh-huh,” and went back to talking to Aaron.

  And as if
that weren’t depressing enough, after homeroom, I walked by Jenny Bachman’s locker, and she was showing off the necklace that Mark O’Keefe had gotten her.

  One of these days, I’m going to write a story called “The Gift of the Tadi.” It’s about how it’s better to give than to receive, but sometimes, it just sucks all around.

  Great news! Jenny Bachman broke up with Mark O’Keefe!

  I guess she was wearing her necklace at the mall, and then she saw, like, two girls from other middle schools wearing the exact same necklace, and she asked them where they’d gotten it, and all three of them thought they were dating Mark!

  This may be the best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten.

  OK, I realize it’s not the point of the story, but still: If I were Scrooge, and I got to see Christmas Future, I’d try and snag a newspaper while I was there so I could place bets on sports and win a lot of money.