Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea Read Online Free PDF Page A

occasionally stepped in with some guidance, but my parents were exhausted after raising my five older siblings, and I have no doubt that my mother’s pregnancy with me was an accident. Mostly because on several occasions, she told me I was an accident.
    I wanted Susan and her husband to leave already, and wondered if she would ever stop talking. I had dealt with some over-protective parents before, but this was outrageous. Susan was a total basket case, and I didn’t like the idea of being responsible for either one of her children. This was clearly a woman who would fly off the handle if she came home to find one of her kids missing.
    The whole time Susan was talking, James Sr. sat at the kitchen table staring out the window. He probably had no idea his life would end up like this when he first met Susan. She was probably fun and outgoing with no signs of being a complete and utter nightmare. This was not the life anyone intended to carve out for themselves, and I imagined James Sr. hanging himself sometime in the next couple of weeks.
    After explaining in excruciatingly painful detail what to do in case of a tidal wave, she handed Kyle to me and headed for the door. When they finally left, I put Kyle down on his feet, and we walked back into the living room, where James Jr. was playing Nintendo.
    “I want my dinner,” James said, without looking up from the game he was playing.
    “Okay,” I said, and walked back in the kitchen with Kyle, who was shadowing my every move.
    “Actually,” he yelled out, “I’ll take some frozen yogurt first.”
    I didn’t mind giving James the frozen yogurt first, but didn’t really appreciate being ordered around like a servant. “Well, would you like to come into the kitchen and eat it?”
    “No, bring it to me!” he barked.
    I looked down at Kyle, who frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “Do you want frozen yogurt first too?” I asked him. Kyle’s eyes lit up as he nodded his head feverishly. Kyle was cute and I felt bad for him. He had no chance of having a normal life. If I had just been a couple of years older, I could have adopted Kyle and given him a real life, but I knew I had to get through middle school before committing myself to potty training a six-year-old.
    “I’ll get the yogurt for you,” Kyle said in a very soft, sweet voice. I was shocked that in his condition he could even speak, never mind negotiate his way to the freezer.
    “Thank you, Kyle, that’s very thoughtful of you,” I said loudly, eyeing James to let him know that good behavior would be rewarded with positive affirmations. “What a sweet boy you are!”
    I kept a close watch on James until Kyle returned with the bowl and walked over to where his brother was sitting.
    “Put it on the floor,” James demanded.
    “Can you please not talk to him like that?” I asked James in what I thought was a reasonable tone.
    What happened next is hard to describe. Whatever happened to Lou Ferrigno right before he turned into the Incredible Hulk was similar to the rage that filled up James’s face right before he wailed, “Put the yogurt on the floor!” The only differences were, James didn’t turn green and he wasn’t wearing cut-off jeans. Kyle started crying and I nearly threw my back out picking him up.
    I felt a little scared but was also taken aback by the lack of respect James had for adults. He was obviously a loose cannon, and I knew I had to remain calm and get back some control of the situation.
    “Okay, James, you need to pipe down. I do not appreciate being talked to like that, and you are scaring your brother.”
    “I don’t have to listen to you. I can talk to you any way I want, you dumb girl!”
    I was tempted to tell James that he was technically talking to a woman, since my very first period had come on a like a sneak attack earlier that month, but I wasn’t about to get into the birds and bees discussion so early in the night.
    This was not going well, and I really had no