Eggs scare me. Chickens, too. And buddy, you can laugh at that all you want, but I'm being
dead serious here.
It started in the sixth grade with eggs.
And a snake.
And the Baker brothers.
The Baker brothers' names are Matt and Mike, but even now I can't tell you which one's
which. You never see one without the other. And even
though they're not twins, they do look and sound pretty much the same, and they're both in
Lynetta's class, so maybe one of them got held back.
Although I can't exactly see a teacher voluntarily having either of those maniacs two years in
a row.
Regardless, Matt and Mike are the ones who taught me that snakes eat eggs. And when I
say they eat eggs, I'm talking they eat them raw and
shell-on whole.
I probably would've gone my entire life without this little bit of reptilian trivia if it hadn't been
for Lynetta. Lynetta had this major-league thing for
Skyler Brown, who lives about three blocks down, and every chance she got, she went down
there to hang out while he practiced the drums. Well,
boom-boom-whap, what did I care, right? But then Skyler and Juli's brothers formed a band,
which they named Mystery Pisser.
When my mom heard about it, she completely wigged out. “What kind of parents would allow
their children to be in a band named Mystery
Pisser? It's vile. It's disgusting!”
“That's the whole point, Mom,” Lynetta tried to explain. “It doesn't mean anything. It's just to
get a rise out of old people.”
“Are you calling me old, young lady? Because it's certainly getting a rise out of me!”
Lynetta just shrugged, implying that my mom could draw her own conclusion.
“Go! Go to your room,” my mother snapped.
“For what?” Lynetta snapped back. “I didn't say a thing!”
“You know perfectly well what for. Now you go in there and adjust your attitude, young lady!”