I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class Read Online Free PDF Page A

her vocabulary. 27 Naturally, everyone who hears me thinks I’m just speaking some childhood nonsense language to my dog. My only worry is if I run into a Basque speaker in Omaha. And that is not likely.
     
    Lollipop is sitting at Daddy’s feet right now, staring up at him as he eats his dinner. She always sits there. Waiting. Not waiting for him to drop some food (he won’t). Waiting for something bigger. Like a cobra watching a zookeeper, waiting for him to look away for just a second. . . .
     
    Daddy tries to ignore her, but I notice he always keeps a firm grip on his knife.
     
    He’s looking thoughtfully over his glasses as he cuts his ham steak into dainty bites and tells us about his amazing day.
     
    “I told the man, ‘Look, I’m flattered—it’s a very generous offer. But it’s really not for me. I’m needed where I am.’” He lowers his eyes modestly. Daddy is constantly lowering his eyes modestly. It’s like he’s scared he’ll see all the people he thinks are admiring him.
     
    “You did the right thing,” gushes Mom. She’s leaning forward on her elbows, eager not to miss a syllable. “You always do the right thing!” The poor dear really doesn’t know any better.
     
    To my thinking, the only “right thing” my father ever did was marry Mom. That happened about six months after their first date, during their senior year at the University of Nebraska. I have a picture of them on that date ( see plate 7 )—it was a dance of some sort. Mom is the beaming blonde head-cheerleader. Daddy lurks next to her, a frazzled, bowtied nerd, who somehow mustered the nerve to ask this fertility goddess out and still can’t believe she said yes. So they got married, I was born a few months later, 28 and the end result is I have to eat dinner with this man every night. That’s at Mom’s insistence, by the way. Daddy and I would both prefer to eat in our rooms.

    PLATE 7: I have a picture of them
on that date—it was a dance of some sort.
     
    But I should let him finish his story: “So then he tried to offer me even more money, which kind of confirmed for me that my head was in the right place. I mean, I didn’t get into this business for the money.”
     
    That’s for sure. Daddy runs the local public broadcasting affiliate. That’s the television channel that runs Sesame Street . Do you like Sesame Street ? Well, Daddy doesn’t have anything to do with that. In fact, he thinks Sesame Street is “out of step with today’s pre-tweens.” But it’s popular, so he has to keep it on his station.
     
    Here’s what Daddy really does: Sometimes when you turn on a public broadcasting station, you will see an obese overrated opera singer singing and sweating (but mostly sweating). These performances are interrupted every seven minutes by a couple of people who smile too much. It’s usually a man with glasses and a woman whose teeth are too big for her mouth. Both of them look like they have very bad breath. Behind them, about twenty bored people sit at a table answering telephones.
    The man and woman ask you to please, please call the number on your screen and make a donation, so they can continue to bring you fine programs featuring fat sweaty opera singers.
     
    Daddy’s job is to arrange these fund-raising extravaganzas. Sometimes he even appears onscreen as the smiling man with glasses. Have you seen him? He’s got a bony triangle for a face, a feathery “smart guy” mini-mullet tickling the back of his neck, and narrow, narrow shoulders that somehow bear the sins of this world.
     
    So, though I mock him, I have to admit my father can do one thing I can’t: beg.
     
    I roll my mouth around a brussels sprout and swallow loudly. I give him my gravest little-boy-seeking-wisdom look: “But wouldn’t you be able to buy Mom presents if you made more money?”
     
    Daddy responds with his gentlest haven’t I taught you anything? voice: “Some things are more important than money,