My Miserable Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

dinner. She says she enjoys living in the desert because the air is better and there isn’t any traffic, but I think she just likes to have a little distance between herself and my mom.
    This Thanksgiving she drove in from the desert and ran back and forth from her car unloading everything, kissing me each time she came inside. “Oh, Ben, you are so wonderful. You are the most adorable young man I have ever seen.” She brought these scented candles that smelled like apple pie and pumpkin pie, and bouquets of orange and yellow and red flowers, and all these pots and pans and serving dishes and groceries. My mom gets grossed out by cooking turkeys, but my grandma just reached right inside that bird and pulled out all the innards and whistled while she did it. And she made mashed potatoes with lots of butter and cream, and yams topped with marshmallows, and pumpkin pie.
    But on Thanksgiving night, my family were up to their old tricks.
    â€œOh, Mom, why did you put marshmallows on the yams? Aren’t they plenty sweet as it is?” my mom said to my grandma.
    My grandmother continued to merrily scoop yams with marshmallows onto my plate. “It’s a special occasion! And besides, it might get them to eat some vegetables. Vitamin A! Would you like some, Angelina?”

    â€œNo thanks, Grandma. Yams make me vomit,” Angelina said. She sipped her mineral water.
    â€œAngelina!” my mom said. “Is that a way to talk at dinner?”
    â€œWell, it’s true.”
    Then I heard the sound of a Lady Blah-Blah song, very softly coming from under the table. Angelina was receiving a text, even though she wasn’t allowed to have her phone at dinner, but I saw, and before I could tell, she started crying.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, sweetheart?” my grandma asked.
    â€œAmanda Panda sent me a link about the brutal treatment of Native Americans by the Pilgrims. This is a barbaric holiday,” she said. She got up and ran out of the room. I think it was just because she hates green beans and yams, even with marshmallows on top.
    A little while later, my grandma announced that there was pie with vanilla ice cream, and Angelina came back in. She didn’t seem too upset anymore. Just as we were going to eat dessert, there was a commotion in the bushes outside the window and Monkeylad leaped inside onto the table, whisking his tail through the gravy bowl. In his smiling mouth was what looked like an alien baby. Angelina clutched her stomach and ran out again, saying she was going to vomit. My mom screamed after Angelina not to keep using the word vomit at the dinner table, and she screamed at Monkeylad that he was a bad dog.
    My grandma said you shouldn’t call anyone bad because there was no such thing as bad except for Hitler and racists and terrorists and murderers and global warming. And then, of course, there was a knock on the door and it was our neighbor Mrs. Finkelstein.
    â€œThat animal of yours stole my Cornish hen,” she shrieked.
    She was wearing a flowered housedress and was bent almost in two over her cane.
    â€œOh, I’m so sorry,” my grandma said. “Come in and have some dinner with us. I guess Monkeylad was just trying to invite you over in his own special way. I’m so sorry about your hen, but we have lots of turkey and pie.”
    She guided Mrs. Finkelstein inside, sat her down, and prepared a plate for her while Monkeylad skulked under the table because he had been called bad, as in global warming and Hitler, when he only wanted to give my mom an alien baby as a present.

    â€œHey,” I said when we were finished, “why don’t we all go outside and throw the ball?”
    â€œI have to do the dishes,” my mom said. “Look how many of them there are. Maybe afterward.”
    Grandma and Monkeylad were walking Mrs. Finkelstein home, and Angelina had already disappeared into her room.
    I really wished I had someone to play