"The kitty cat says 'meow.'"

 

"And what does the birdy say, Joey?"

 

"The birdy says 'tweet tweet.'"

 

"And what does Daddy say, Joey?"

 

"Daddy says, 'no say fuck you no more.'"

 

Dave unconvincingly gasped. "Don't say 'fuck you' no more!" he mocked me.

"DAVID, STOP IT!" Mom yelled from the kitchen.

 

"Sorry, Mom," Dave said innocently. My brother and I were sitting at the table, him eating cereal as I waited for Mom to bring me my waffles. "Really, Joe, you should go get up and make your own breakfast. You're three years old now," Dave said, changing the subject.

 

"My name is Klafterus,"  I replied purely out of habit as I gazed at Dave's cereal box. Even if I didn't like the cereal, I always whined until Mom and Dad bought the box with Lion King characters on it.

 

Grandma was gone from us now. She had left for another plane of existence, another space-time continuum, known as Las Vegas. We were going to be following her there in our big red family van, once we got everything packed up, which was easier said than done. My family is the kind that keeps everything. Absolutely everything. When we'd get classic-style Coke bottles from vending machines, we'd save them. When I'd open up action figures, I'd keep the cardboard back with the description on it. We'd keep collections of Pez dispensers, trading cards, and coins that we never ate Pez out of, played games with, or spent. When New Kids on the Block changed their name to NKOTB, we still kept all their old merchandise. I also had a mother who was late to everything. Absolutely everything. I think it was because she'd spend so much time yelling at us to get ready to go, she'd forget to do it herself. Grandma once told her to arrive at 6:00 for a party that didn't start until 7:00. Unfortunately, the family that keeps absolutely everything and the mother who is late to absolutely everything mix together about as well as Nelly and Tim McGraw, who are already bad enough by themselves. Eventually, we made it onto the road in our big red family van with our food, clothes, classic Coke bottles, action figures, Pez dispensers, trading cards, coins, Lion King cereal boxes, TV set, VCR, three hundred VHS tapes, karaoke machine, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, sparring gear, drumset, Grandma's teeth that she left behind, The Beatles' "Revolver" on vinyl, one crib, one bunkbed, another bunkbed for company, one king-sized bed, one king-sized Snickers bar wrapper, a sofa, a loveseat, a Disneyland brochure, a lap harp, a dancing mechanical clown, and our dog Ginger.

 

Unexpectedly, this was too much for our car to take all the way to Las Vegas, and it broke down before about twelve minutes into our journey. We had a brief stay at a gas station while some guys fixed it up. And it was during this time that I had my very first soda. It was a 7-Up, in a shiny green can with a strange red dot in between the number and word rather than a hyphen, which I'm sure convinces many newcomers with the ability to read that the drink is called "7oup." It was my brothers who convinced me to try it.

 

"Come on, Joey, this is good, it's soda, lots of people drink this!" Mike would say.

 

"Yeah, Joey, it's just like Pez! No, no, that doesn't mean you get to collect the can... just drink it, come on Joey!" Dave would join in.

 

And so I tried it.

 

I have since concluded that my brothers are evil.

 

The instant the substance touched my tongue I felt as if someone stuck a flamethrower inside my mouth and turned it on. It burned like a mother, and the pain escalated as it touched the roof of my mouth. I felt like I did when I drank that bottle of Palmolive and puked it up, except this time I had dranken some strange mixture of a dragon and a lemon. There was no mercy. The situation's ridiculousness increased exponentially as the "drink" slid down my throat, as if I had swallowed my fireplace. Finally, I began to scream, "JUST KILL ME! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO LIVE!" And then I blacked out.

 

When I awoke, we were back in the van on our way across country. The gas station guys claimed they had souped our van up so that it could carry a lot more weight, but I had suspicions when I noticed that our TV and Super Nintendo seemed to be missing, along with a couple of those Coke bottles. I eventually decided to start up a conversation with Mom. "Hey, Mom, we're leaving Lombard, right?"

 

"YES! GOSH, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT, YOU'RE DUMB EVEN FOR A TODDLER, JOEY!"

 

"Well... what city are we going to?"

 

"LAS VEGAS! THAT'S BEEN STATED MANY TIMES ALREADY!"

 

"Oh... I thought that was the name of the house we were gonna live in..."

 

Las Vegas was not our house. It was, however, the downright dumbest place I'd ever seen. It was called "The Meadows" but there was nothing there but sand and asphalt. We had like three stars in the sky because of light pollution, and we got shot at twenty-seven times a day. But in my twisted three-year-old mind, it all made sense to me; of course, I was the Messiah! And what more ironic place could the Messiah live than "Sin City"? Yes, my mind had already taken on a striking resemblance to the writing process. I had not told anyone in my family about my belief that I would one day die for the world's sins. I didn't want them to laugh at me, like I knew they would. They found pleasure at showing false amusement at my intelligence. They would see one day, anyway, when I was accepted by many as the world's savior and they were written into history as the wicked stepsisters who mistreated me...

 

Unfortunately, the next time they laughed at me was not because of my ultimate goal in life, nor did I do anything to stop them. We arrived at Grandma's house, where we would be staying for a while "until we could find a place to buy." Personally, I think we were just out of money and they were too embarrassed to tell me. I walked into my the house, took a good look around, and said, "Yeah, it's nice, Gram, but where's the stairs?"

 

And Grandma looked at me sadly, and said, "Well, this house doesn't have any stairs, Joey."

 

I said, "Oh. Well you need to buy some stairs, Gram."

 

And again, for the second time, they laughed at me. Their jealousy morphed into twisted hyena-esque squeals of hatred as they stared me down. I wanted to leap forth and drown them all in 7-Up. But I remained three years old, and unable to defend myself. I swore for the second time that I would one day show them who was boss, that one day they would bow down to me, and I would have absolute power over their souls. But for then, I remained a child and a loser, until the day I gained control of the world.

 

In a democratic fashion, of course. Long live America.