I say the wise men are morons. I knew I was screwed from the day I was born. I'd had complete control before I was brought into this crummy world. Now there was more to do than I could ever do, more people to meet than time to talk to them. Perfection had ceased to exist except in the abstract. I was forced to compromise between what I wanted to do for fun and what I had to do to survive. I was also surrounded by the poorest excuse of a family that has ever existed.

 

My mother, Nicole, seemed to have some unnatural connection to me that no one else did. She was always holding me and carrying me. She'd stay home all day just to take care of me. I mean, geez lady, go get a job, I can take care of myself. Then she'd yell at people all the time. "WHO LEFT THE DOOR OPEN? WHO HAS THEIR SHOES ON IN THE HOUSE? WHERE ARE MY KEYS?" Meanwhile I would draw all over the walls with a crayon trying to express my dismay at being stuck in such a house, and she'd say, "Oh! Look at the beautiful picture Joey drew! You're so perfect Joey!" as she pinched my cheek. Then she'd turn around and yell, "ALAN! WHY'D YOU LET HIM DO THAT? COME CLEAN THIS UP NOW! AND WHY IS THE AIR SO LOW?"

 

Now Alan, he's my father. He's the one who lent me my middle name. You might think, "Oh! What a nice gesture!" but he did that to all his kids so that none of us would feel more important than the others. As if he needed to worry about the psychological effects of my middle name when I was refusing to accept my first one. Klafterus! My name is Klafterus! I would constantly think whenever they called me Joey. My dad was the kind of guy who would tape a football game over someone's favorite movie... or my first birthday...

 

The other half of the family was made up of my two brothers: David, 12 years older than me, and Michael, 10 years older than me. They both took extreme advantage of having a new little brother. Dave was so lazy he would either sleep on top of the bed covers so he wouldn't have to make them in the morning, or sleep in them and then make me fix it up. I probably even had to take out the trash a few times for him. Mike, on the other hand, would sit there for hours trying to get me to push a button on some lame toy somebody bought for me. Why couldn't he understand I didn't want to play with the toy? "Don't worry, Mom, I think he's almost got it!" he'd say. Honestly, who wants to hear a duck go quack or a cow go moo? What a retarded gift to buy a kid. Even they're not dumb enough for that.

 

Eventually they decided it was time to teach me to walk and talk. Tell me something; what toddler in his right mind would want to learn how to walk? Those are the only years of your life you get to be lazy! Look at adults, running around like some gothic kid's shaking their antfarm. I mean, really, why would you just give up and start walking?

 

"Come on, Joey, it's easy, you just put one foot in front of the other and keep doing that over and over!"

 

"Joey, here, let me help you stand up..."

 

 

Then there's the language, which is ridiculous. It's completely unfounded and silly.

 

"Here, Joey, this is called a 'cup.' Can you say that?"

 

 

"'Cup,' Joey, say, 'cup.'"

 

 

The stupidity of my family was further demonstrated by incidents such as, but not limited to, Dad dropping my stroller down the staircase. Or the time Mike kept calling Mom about dumb things until she told him to stop calling her, and so when Dave shot out the neighbor's car window with his BB gun and got taken to the police station, Mike opted not to call Mom and let her know. The only person in my family I felt I could really trust was Grandma. She taught me so many things, like the power of creativity and imagination, and that I should never stop doing anything that I have my heart set on. She also told me all kinds of things when my parents weren't around, like that they were Korean spies who were going to use me in some sort of experiment, or that I had another brother who my family dumped in a sewer because he didn't learn to walk and talk fast enough. My family for some reason didn't like me to be alone with Grandma very much.

 

In the end, I gave in and began to walk and talk, because I was sick of Mom yelling at everyone else about what I wasn't able to achieve. "Seriously, if it's my fault, yell at me, please?" was probably one of my early sentences.

 

And of course, everyone would run over and suffocate me in what I'm guessing was supposed to be affection, screaming, "Oh Joey! You're so smart!"

 

"Klafterus," I would say simply. "My name is Klafterus."

 

Basically, early childhood was quite boring for me. I didn't get the same treatment other kids got when they were little. I couldn't wait to get older so everyone would get off my back about everything I did. And eventually, I did get older, and ended up looking back and thinking that these were great times and wishing I could go back to them. But I won't lie to you. Really, they weren't that great. In fact, they sucked. The only reason they seem good is because you only ever really have fun when you're either waiting for something or deep in retrospect. When you think about it, you never seem to really have fun in the present tense. Then again, maybe you do; and maybe I'm just a loser.