I AM SO DUMB

I cannot believe...

Not for one single second...

That I forgot...

To update my blog...

SINCE JULY OF LAST YEAR!!

OH MY GOSH YOU CANNOT BELIEVE IT EITHER! And it's a NIGHTMARE!

You guys out there that read this, you really do my heart a lot of good, and here I've been teasing you with news about how my date with Ramona went. I wouldn't blame you if you BURNED ME AT THE STAKE! That's the way justice was served out in OLDEN TIMES.

PLEASE! A last request!

LET ME SAY GOODBYE TO MY FAMILY!

Goodbye, Dad! Even though you're kind of a jerk, I love you!

Goodbye, Hotaru! You're the coolest sister ever!

FAREWELL FRIENDS!

Goodbye, Chuck! You've got a cool guitar and your hair always looks nice! Thanks for letting me borrow your shoes. I'm wearing them now AS I BURN!!

Goodbye, Enid! You were always really mean, but you were still my friend! I know you've got a heart in there somewhere! I'm kidding!

Goodbye, Stuart! It was a pleasure working with you, even though you teased me a lot!

I got up out of bed a few weeks ago and checked the mail and I was looking at my cable bill when I noticed this weird 40 dollar charge on there I hadn't ever really paid any attention to ever.

Forty dollars! This is insane! It's a travesty! A crime!

BURN THEM AT THE STAKE TOO!

SAY GOODBYE!!

So I called the cable company and asked them what this charge was and they told me it was for my HIGH SPEED INTERNET!

It was then that I remembered I put my laptop under my bed so I wouldn't step on it when I got up in the morning and that at some point I forgot I even owned a laptop.

I had to play this cool, so I waited for Chuck to get home and I asked him if I could use his laptop. He asked me why I couldn't just use mine and I said I couldn't find it, because for one Chuck looked like he needed something to do and also because I didn't want to look like an idiot for forgetting that I owned a laptop that I bought WITH MY OWN MONEY.

After like AN HOUR of searching the house with me pretending I didn't know where my laptop was, we “found” it under my bed and I thanked Chuck for helping me.

It was then that I realized that I actually HAD lost the power cord for my laptop, so we spent another TWENTY MINUTES looking for that and then mysteriously found it in Enid's dresser along with some other stuff I left in her dresser while I was snooping around looking for Christmas presents.

I didn't want to know what she got ME. I wanted to know what she got CHUCK because she wouldn't tell me because the last three years in a row I've ruined the secret by letting it slip to Chuck and I wanted to see if I could trust myself, but I couldn't because I guess in this experiment of mine I just lost some of my stuff that would later be important and wasted part of an afternoon looking for stuff that I already knew where it was and stuff I accidentally hid from myself.

It's funny how stuff you do in December can come back to haunt you in February.

Oh, that's right! February. I found my computer and the cord for it in February, then started writing about the date I had with Ramona, and then got distracted when Enid wanted my help making banana bread for the stupid homeless shelter.

WEEKS LATER I return to my room and realize the light that's been keeping me awake at night is that cool 3D fish screen saver Hotaru got me for my birthday, except there's a shirt over the screen of my computer and I'd lost it AGAIN.

UNDER THE SHIRT

That shirt has a little guy on it that looks like a sort of green bearmonster, I guess.

He's the logo of a band called OBF that I listen to.

Chuck told me about them. He's in a band too. Called LOBSTAR. I think LOBSTAR is my favorite band.

So anyway, after I got all the computer stuff squared away, I started writing about Hotaru coming to visit me for Christmas, which was awesome.

My dad doesn't really celebrate Christmas, but I do since my friends do, so Hotaru always comes here for her winter break.

I guess there's not much to say since she was only here up through New Years and mostly she just got me a cool shirt that she made herself, which is what she usually gets me for Christmas. She also told me that she and Jacoby broke up, which is good because that means I don't have to BEAT UP A LITTLE KID but bad because she was sad about it.

I remember my first love. Her name was Bryndis and she and I went to the same elementary school. We held hands while we sat under the jungle gym and the other boys teased me but I DIDNT CARE IT WAS TRUE LOVE I TOLD THEM AND THATS SOMETHING THEY WILL NEVER KNOW!

It's too bad she broke up with me when she found out I hadn't gotten my COOTIES SHOT.

I bet she felt stupid a few years later when she realized COOTIES IS NOT AN ACTUAL DISEASE.

TOO LATE BRYNDIS! This ship has SAILED!

You had your shot and you BLEW IT!

This reminds me of something.

I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE I WENT ON A DATE WITH RAMONA

There were two big problems with our date.

First off, I lost the paper she gave me with her address on it, and all I could remember was the street name, so I found the street on a map that I found in Chuck's car and just drove my Vespa down that street until I saw a bunch of kids in stupid paper hats running around in a yard.

I brought a pan of lemon squares with me and hoped I was at the right place, mostly because I was running really late, but also because if these kids heard I was coming and they put on party hats to trick me into giving out my lemon squares, their trap had WORKED and they were about to go after me like STARVING DOGS.

You have to be really hungry to come up with a plan like that just to steal lemon squares from a guy.

I was about to give in and start demanding to speak to either Ramona or Damien to make sure that I hadn't been duped when I saw Ramona.

And that's it.

The next thing I knew it got darker and I was suddenly standing in front of the closed door of Ramona's house. My Vespa was behind me, running, and there was a bag sitting right where my feet would be able to hold it.

OH MY GOD I SPACED IT!

THE WHOLE DATE!!

LOST TO THE SEAS OF TIME AND MEMORY WHAT A TRAGEDY!!

This was the second problem with the date. I couldn't remember it.

What could I do from there? Knock on the door and ask her if she had a good time?

What if I had been a creep?

Oh man, this is bad.

She hasn't been in the bakery.

I wonder what's up...

Should I call her?

OKAY! Sorry, everyone. I'll update this more. I promise.

With my heart!

BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG

SHE CAME INTO THE BAKERY TODAY!!

But more on that later! Hotaru left, back to Iceland, to get ready for school and see her sweetheart Jacoby. Ooh la la! He better not kiss her, or he's got another thing coming!

I don't own any firearms, but I always got THE GUNS!

You couldn't see me right there, but I flexed my arms.

(I have really skinny arms.)

So it was real sad when Hotaru had to leave and blah blah blaSHE CAME TO THE BAKERY TODAY!

NOT HOTARU!

RAMONA!

THIS GIRL I HAVE THE TOTAL WACKO HOTS FOR!!!

Stuart and I were throwing a tennis around. I'm no good at that, but neither is Stuart. We kept knocking things over and dropping the ball. FUMBLLLLE! Or whatever they say in tennis.

Stuart was still razzing me about Ramona. "So, Kojiro, is your little chipparoo coming in today? Your sweet chicklet?"

"Get a life, STUART!" I told him, and then I threw our tennis ball into the trash. That should show him, even though it was MY TENNIS BALL!!

YEAH STICK IT TO EM KOJIRO!

So anyways, the night after Hotaru left I was talking to Enid and Enid was all "Blah blah blah, if you want to ask a girl out, just be yourself and be really nice because girls like that and it wouldn't hurt to COMB YOUR HAIR AND WEAR A CLEAN SHIRT!"

So I've been combing my hair and wearing the same clean shirt EVERY DAY because it's my best shirt. I've been washing it every night, DO NOT WORRY! I am clean!

I asked Chuck because I thought he asked Enid out, but it turns out she asked him out! I asked him if it helped if I was in a band. He told me it might. I asked if I could join his band and he told me no.

The reason Stuart was razzing me was because I asked him what I should do and he said "Give her a kiss on the cheek, Kojiro! That's what you want to do, isn't it?"

I PUT HIM IN A HEADLOCK AND MADE HIM SAY HE WAS SORRY!!

But I'm not so good at headlocks and he got away and ran off to the back of the bakery and that's where he found the tennis ball in my locker and we decided to throw it around.

YES I HAVE A LOCKER AT WORK!

JUST LIKE A COP!

Which leads me to my next point! Can I ask a girl out while I'm on duty here at the bakery? I saw an episode of The Shield where that one guy told that one girl he couldn't ask her out on a date while he was on duty. Mr. Valenzetti isn't in, so I decided to do it! Nobody would ever know, except Stuart...

AND STUART CAN BE SILENCED!!

I'm just kidding! Stuart is the best.

Anyways, SHE CAME INTO THE BAKERY

I REALIZE I HAVE ALREADY SAID THAT

TWICE

THREE TIMES IF YOU COUNT THE ONE I JUST DID!

She came into the bakerkajleljk I AM IN A LOOP!

She came into the bakery and then Stuart made kissie faces at me and ran off to the back! It was the moment of truth. She was wearing a black t-shirt that said "ROLLING STONE" on it and jeans that looked like boys' jeans. Her hair was pulled up and she had a DO-RAG on like a BIKER!

Okay, Kojiro! This is it!

Clean shirt?

CHECK!

Combed hair?

CHECK!

Fingers numb?

CHECK!

All systems go!

LETS DO THIS

"Good afternoon, Kojiro." Her voice made me all dizzy like the time I left the gas on in the oven. I leaned back onto the wall behind the counter, trying to play it cool.

NO!

I DO NOT PLAY IT COOL!

Enid told me to be myself! And if myself is a person who faints when he's about to ask a pretty girl out, THEN I WILL FAINT!

I fainted.

JUST FOR A SECOND

I was still standing when I opened my eyes. I was dizzy.

"Good afternoon, R-r-r-r-r-rrrr.." I sounded like a car trying to start! What's this!? Stuttering!! IN THIS IMPORTANT TIME AND PLACE!? Get ahold of yourself, Kojiro! I clear my throat...

"Goodafternoonramonahowareyou?" ALL IN ONE WORD!? You're losing it, pal!!

"I'm good. Say, you don't have any of those smiley face cookies I saw you working on that one day, do you?"

THE COOKIES!

OH GOLLY SHE REMEMBERED THE COOKIES!

"Those! Those, I uh, was, uh, working on, uh, for a, uh big uh, proposal to uh, Mr. Valen-uh-zetti, uh. He said, uh, he said they were not to be sold here, uh, because, uh, they were, uh, for kids."

UH!?

HOW MANY TIMES DID IS SAY UH THERE!?

ABORT MISSION!

"But I can make you some."

I SAID ABORT MISSION YOU DOPE!

THIS IS GETTING YOU IN DEEPER!!

"If you just want to wait a minute."

Wait... I'm not stuttering or saying Uh like a big dumb donkey!

Do donkeys say that? A good question. I'll check Wikipedia...

No, they don't.

Anyways, I'm suddenly playing it cool. It's because... because... I AM DOING WHAT I KNOW BEST!!

BAKING!!

"Yeah, that'd be great," She says. "I'm going to my kid brother's birthday party tonight and I figured I should bring something."

"Sure. Hang on."

I went back into the back where we kept the trays of cookies and I started putting faces on them with yellow and black icing. Stuart caught my eye and gave me a double thumbs up! He's not razzing me! He's supporting me! This is going to be AWESOME!

I AM UNSTOPPABLE!

LIKE CAPTAIN AMERICA!

Except Captain America died and the Punisher took over for him...

Hm.

I AM UNSTOPPABLE!

LIKE THE INCREDIBLE HULK!

He just got back from SPACE!

But Hulk wouldn't be very cool to go on a date with...

Gosh...

I AM UNSTOPPABLE!

LIKE THE PUNISHER!!

No. He kills people.

This is too hard...

I AM UNSTOPPABLE!!

LIKE SPIDER-MAN?

Yes! That works! Get rid of that question mark!! IT WORKS!

I come out with the tray of smiling cookies. I take her money and I ask her... I ask her... I ASK HER!!!

"Hey. You have a kid brother?"

"Yeah, I do. His name is Damien."

"Damien! Like the kid from that movie!"

"Yeah. And he's just about as evil."

She laughs. I can only hope she's kidding.

"Say, what time is the party, Ramona?"

"It's at five."

"You wouldn't mind if I, uh... tagged along, would you?"

She was quiet a second. Her eyes went kinda wide and she... she... SHE BLUSHED! HO HO HO!

I WAS BLUSHING TOO!

DOES SHE HAVE THE TOTAL HOTS FOR ME!?

"I, uh, I think that'd be nice..."

Keep cool, you're almost there.

"Then maybe after the party we could go get something to eat."

"Why-I-Uh-Sure! Sure!"

"Wow! All right! Hey! Should I pick you up?"

She asked me for a piece of paper and gave me her address.

As soon as she was gone, I fainted dead away on the floor.

I woke up to Stewart slapping me in the face, "Get it together, Kojiro!" he told me. "You just asked Ramona out on a date!"

"I did?"

"You did."

"I DID!"

The rest of the day I was WALKING ON AAAAIR.

And now in a little bit I - WOAH HEY!

HEY!

ITS 4:39!

HOLY SMOKES IM GONNA BE LATE BYE

UPDATE OF THE BEST KIND!!

After being such a dumblefritz and FORGETTING that Hotaru was COMING HERE TO AMERICA, I decided to dedicate TONS of time to her. That's why I haven't updated in like A MONTH!!

So Hotaru is here now and she's still in bed. She sleeps in like CRAZY! I guess it's because she works so hard at school, during the summer, she is ULTRA LAZY!

Our first night here we saw Shrek 3, and it was FIMARBULOUS. There's this part where a baby Shrek pukes all over the regular Shrek. I was about to throw up MYSELF I was laughing so hard, and it was also REALLY GROSS.

The next day she and I got into a shaving cream fight in the living room and instead of cleaning it up we just mashed it into the carpet. Enid came home and started choking. "WHAT IS THAT SMELL!? WHY DOES THE WHOLE HOUSE SMELL LIKE AFTERSHAVE!? WHAT DID YOU DO KOJIRO!?"

Hotaru and I made a speedy escape out my bedroom window. We didn't even put our video games on pause, which probably gave it away that we made a speedy escape, but ENID NEVER CAUGHT US because she's slow!

Then, OH MY GOD, she was texting somebody on her cell phone and I was like "Who's that you're texting on your cell phone!?"

She turned like BEET RED and she was like "NOBODY OKAY!?"

Oh ho ho ho ho! Now is the time where my BIG BROTHER INSTINCTS come into play! I know that tone of voice! I KNOW THAT COLOR OF RED!

AND ITS NOT JUST BECAUSE I KNOW BEETS!!

"JACOBY!" I cried! "YOU ARE TEXTING THAT JACOBY BOY!"

"SHUT UP KOJIRO!" she yelled and she started laughing because I was RIGHT ALL ALONG!

SHERLOCK TANAKA AT YOUR SERVICE!

My powers of deduction are FLAWLESS!!

"Are you asking him on a date!?" I asked her. I snatched her phone away and checked.

She got REAL QUIET and REAL RED like a beet again and she told me "I already did!"

I was like "AAAAAAAAAH!!"

THEY WENT ON A DATE JUST AFTER THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOOOOOL!!!

More Big Brother Instincts came into play and I kind of wanted to kick that Jacoby kid's butt, but I kept that to myself. HE BETTER BE A PROPER GENTLEMAN TO MY HOTARU!

So we got to talking about Jacoby and then she asked me if I still had the total hots for Ramona and then it was MY turn to go red and her Little Sister Instincts kicked in and she was like "YOU DO!"

"I DO" I SAID "I DO!!"

Then she told me that I should ask her out on a date.

"No way!" I said. "I've got the total hots for her!"

"That's why you need to ask her out!" she said.

"No way! No WAY!"

"Come on, Kojiro! The worst she can do is say no!"

Well!

WELL!!

I never thought of it like that.

So I told Hotaru, "Well. WELL! I never thought of it like that!"

So, um, next time I see Ramona...

I'm going to ask her out on a date.

I guess.

OH MY GOD

UPDATE IN THE EXTREME

How could I have forgotten!

FOOLISH KOJIRO!

All this talk about Hotaru! What a fool I am!

She gets out of school TODAY!! The day I made that last post!

That means she's on SUMMER BREAK YEAH YEAH SLEEP IN AND GO TO THE BEACH!

That means she's going to be coming here for her visit soon!

She comes EVERY SUMMER and I TOTALLY SPACED IT!

Wow! So cool!

I have to make sure the fold-out bed in the couch is ready!

I have to get some tapes for us to watch!

TAPES!?

WHO WATCHES TAPES ANYMORE!?

I'm now in FULL ON FREAK OUT MODE!!

DVD! That's what we need!

SOME DVDS!

Oh my God! OH MY GOD!!

I HAVE TO TELL CHUCK AND ENID TOO SO THEY DONT COME IN AND FIND SOME STRANGE JAPANESE GIRL HANGING OUT IN THEIR LIVING ROOM!

THEY MIGHT SHOOT HER!

IF THEY HAD A GUN I MEAN

AAAAAAAA

LONG TIME NO SEE

It's been a long time since I updated, but it's because I went on a trip to ICELAND!

Oh, Iceland!

The place where I grew up until Dad got sick of me and sent me to school here in America!

My father. He's a big Japanese man. Like Sulu, only WORSE. Like Sulu when he's on Heroes! So scary.

I was wearing this gray suit he bought me for my college graduation. I never graduated college, but he got me the suit anyway. When he picked me up at the airport he told me I looked ridiculous and I'm not fit to wear that suit until I've got some kind of education and honor or something.

To cheer that old sourpuss up, I tried to buy him a pretzel or a hot dog in the airport. I bought one of each and he just stood there with his arms crossed. When I told him he could pick one or the other, he said, "Eat them yourself. I'm not hungry, Kojiro."

My dad is a jerk.

But I didn't go to Iceland to see him! I went to see my sister! Little Hotaru!

Hotaru was waiting in the car outside the airport. When she saw me, she ran out of the car and threw her arms around me!

"Kojiro!" she said "Big brother! I've missed you!"

She was speaking Icelandic and since I haven't been to Iceland in a long time, I thought she was just jabbering in some made-up little kid moon language! Then I caught on and said to her, in Icelandic, "You are my favorite duckling."

Duckling isn't a pet name I use for her. I just forgot the word for little sister. It worked, though.

My sister and I don't like to talk too much in front of my dad. It's because he's always giving me dirty looks when I tell her about my life. He thinks Chuck and Enid are degenerates and being a baker's apprentice is a silly waste of my time. He told me that I'm a bad influence on my sister.

My dad is a jerk.

We got back to my dad's house and HOO BOY! It's gigantic! Wow! Talk about a mansion! It gets bigger every time I see it, it seems like. I said that to my father and he told me it's because my apartment is so small.

My dad is a jerk.

So Dad showed me to my old room and then I got settled and then Hotaru showed up and we sat on the floor and played Connect Four while we caught up on each other. I told her about Ramona and how I've got the total hots for her and Hotaru told me there's a boy in her class named Jacoby or something that she has the hots for!

Man oh man! You should have heard us teasing each other!

Also, she kicked my BUTT at Connect Four. We played like a hundred games and I only won like three of them. She's so smart.

She also told me Dad has the hots for some lady he works with and they went on a date the other night! Ooh la la! I told her we should tease him, too, and we both laughed and laughed until Dad showed up and told us it was time to eat.

Eating at my dad's is always really uncomfortable. He's got this big long table and he sits at the head of it. Hotaru and I always sit across from each other down the table a ways and we kick each other's legs under the table and throw food when Dad's not looking. The people who cook his food are always coming in and shoving more food at you and I feel awkward not eating all of it. Sometimes it's really gross stuff like this gray stuff that they make. It looks like something you should put on crackers, but they don't ever give you crackers and Dad eats it with a fork, so I figure that's how you're supposed to eat it. It tastes like WASABI and MUSHROOMS!

No thank you!

"So, Dad!" I said, "Hotaru tells me you got the hots for some chick at work!"

"Kojiro!" Hotaru gasped.

"Hotaru!" Dad gasped.

"Dad!" I gasped.

"What's wrong? Is she a dog!?" And I kicked the floor and howled. Dad didn't even smile. He just cleared his throat and looked at his food.

Ouch!

My dad is a jerk.

After dinner I went off into the kitchen. Dad has the COOLEST kitchen. He hates me being in there. When I was a kid I'd go in there and cook and he'd say "Don't get used to it, son! You're going to lead a life of luxury! You'll never have to cook for yourself again, son!"

Now I cook for other people.

He doesn't call me son anymore.

My dad is a jerk.

So after I baked a loaf of zucchini bread in Dad's FANCY PANTS OVEN, I brought it up to Hotaru's room and we sat there and ate zucchini bread and talked until the sun was coming up. I told her about Enid and Chuck and how Chuck's band is sort of like touring around the area in this big ol' van with curtains in the windows. She told me she wanted to join a band, but not many bands have a violin player anymore. I said she could join a band and play keyboards, but she told me that would be disrespectful to her piano instructor.

"Woah!" I said, "HANG ON LITTLE SIS!" and I took her hand.

"Now you're talking like Dad, and that's no good!" I told her.

"You do what makes YOU happy, and remember that! Dad can find some other sucker to run his company!" I told her.

"Can't I come back to America with you, big brother?" she asked me.

Oh, I hate answering this question. I told her I wanted her to come back with me, but she couldn't. She's in a good school and she's smart as a whip and she needs room to grow.

She got mad at me and stopped talking.

Until I picked up her guitar and started strumming wildly. I wrote her a song, just like when I was panhandling.

"Hotaru, cheer up! Come on!
We'll make it through one way or another!
Because I'm your big brother
And I'm really smart and I know these things!
So come on and we'll eat some more zucchini bread
And maybe watch some cartoons in the morning!"

"That was awful!" she said, but she was laughing, and making my little sister laugh is the best thing ever.

"Someday," I told her, "If you want to, you can come live with me in America. But right now, you have to get two feet under you, and then put those two feet on the ground."

Then I scared myself because that's what my father told me once.

Then I stopped being scared because, well, look at me now! I turned out okay!

The rest of the week was spent taking in the sights of Iceland (and there sure are a lot of them! Wow!) and avoiding my father as much as possible.

I went to school with Hotaru one day and had to wear my gray suit again because they have a dress code there. Teachers kept giving me dirty looks because I was wearing sneakers and I kept laughing during class and trying to talk to Hotaru.

One teacher pulled me aside as we were leaving her classroom and she was like "How old are you, Kojiro Tanaka!? You must be at least twenty-five!"

I told her, "No, ma'am! I'm only twenty-two!"

"Well, start acting like it! What are you doing in my class anyway!?"

"Hotaru Tanaka is my little sister! She took me to school with her today!"

"Hotaru hasn't been in any of my classes in a year!!"

That was when I realized that I was in the wrong classroom. I was wondering where Hotaru was...

I found Hotaru later and told her the story while we ate lunch in the cafeteria, only they don't call it the cafeteria in private school. They also don't call it a cafeteria in Iceland, because they all speak Icelandic up there. I forget what they called it. All I know is that the food there tastes like it did when I was there at that school.

Anyways, she was fit to bust!

The trip back to the airport was really sad. I gave Hotaru a hug and I offered one to my father, but he just shook my hand.

"Keep your nose clean, Kojiro," he told me. "And straighten yourself up! Make your family proud for a change!"

My dad is a jerk.

EYEBROWS! CRITICAL STATUS!

Enid talked me into letting her do my eyebrows.

I MADE A BIG MISTAKE!

"Kojiro," She said, "You've got those big bushy eyebrows. They could use some shape!"

"You'd look so much better!"

I did some figuring in my head.

THIS WAS ALSO A MISTAKE!

My rationalization of the situation went as such:

Enid is a girl.

The girl I like that comes into the bakery is a girl!

Enid thinks I'd look better with neat eyebrows.

The girl I like that comes into the bakery would think I'd look better with neat eyebrows!

"Well sign me up!" I told Enid. "Sign me up all day long!"

So we took some kitchen chairs into the living room where the light was better and she came at me with the tweezers.

YEEEOOOOWTCH!

Girls DO this to themselves!?

I began to struggle.

"Hold still!" she cried "HOLD STILL!"

It was just like that time I started freaking out at the dentist!

"STAY AWAY FROM ME WITH THOSE THINGS!"

I got my foot up and put it on her chest and I was trying to push her away, but she has an IRON GRIP! Like a superhero!

"It doesn't hurt that bad, Kojiro!" she was yelling. I wrenched my hand into her mouth and tried to push her head away. "LET GO OF ME!"

I was screaming and screaming and she just kept plucking! She was too strong for me!

Half an hour later when Chuck came home, Enid was sitting on my chest on the couch, still PLUCKING away. I'd given up. I was about to cry! Oh, no! OH NO! "See, it's not so bad."

"It is so bad," I told her.

"She does my eyebrows, Kojiro." Chuck said. That traitor! That fool! She's got him under her eyebrow spell! "It doesn't hurt so bad!"

"It does hurt so bad," I said and I refused to talk to him the rest of the night.

Later I looked at myself in the mirror in my room. I look like a Frankenstein.

I hope Ramona likes this...

Lettuce Rap About Lettuce

I think that's called a pun.

Anyways, one of my favorite foods is bread. I love all kinds of bread, except rye bread is kind of gross unless it's toasted. Since I love bread so much, I eat a lot of sandwiches!

AND I MEAN A LOT OF SANDWICHES!!

Since I work in a bakery, there's bread EVERYWHERE, but I'm not allowed to eat it and it drives me nuts! And I do mean crazy. So when I want bread, to make a sandwich with, I have to go somewhere else.

There's a deli not far from where I work that makes really great sandwiches, and they even use OUR BREAD. So it's like getting our bread free, but I have to pay for the sandwiches. So it's not free. I pay for the bread.

BUT THE BREAD WE MAKE IS DELICIOUS!!

Anyway, the sandwiches I eat.

They always put shredded lettuce on the sandwiches, but there's always SO MUCH I end up picking the lettuce off. Too much lettuce is a bad thing, but just enough lettuce is perrrrrfect. But you have to be careful about what pieces of lettuce you take off! You could be MISSING OUT!

The worst thing about lettuce is there are good pieces of lettuce and bad pieces of lettuce. Making a good sandwich is impossible if you don't realize this! Especially if there are tomatoes on the sandwich!

Tomatoes are juicy, you see, and if you get thin, weak lettuce, the lettuce gets all wet and sticks to your lips like paper. What if some pretty girl comes up to you while you're eating that sandwich and you got lettuce on your lip! No way, man! She doesn't want any of that! She'll say "I wanted to go on a date with that boy until I saw him with that lettuce on his lip! What if I kissed him!?"

"Ew gross!"

GIRLS WILL NOT KISS YOU IF YOU HAVE WET TOMATOEY LETTUCE ON YOUR LIP

The trick is, when you take lettuce off your sandwich because there's too much, to get the thick pieces of lettuce on there and take the think lettuce OFF. The thick pieces are always down by the bottom of the head of lettuce. By the root! The root is where it's at!

Down by the root, the lettuce isn't as pretty. It's all white and kind of sick looking, but it's CRUNCHY. And when you bite into that CRRRUNCH you'll know you made a good decision in sorting your shredded lettuce, let me just say right here and now!

I tell the people at that deli, "Give me the good stuff! The lettuce by the root!" and they tell me it's all mixed up and it'd be impossible to sort it all out. This is terrible news. They could be losing business!! When they cut the lettuce, they should cut the good stuff and keep it apart! Throw the weak stuff away. It may be a waste of lettuce, but who wants that gross weak stuff anyway?

Now, another place I go to puts whole leaves of lettuce on the sandwiches. This, too, is a terrible mistake!

Say you don't bite all the way through that lettuce leaf. Just imagine! You'd pull back with your bite of sandwich and it'd DRAG ALL THE TOMATOES AND PICKLES OFF RIGHT IN YOUR LAP!

Then you're sitting there all covered in mustard and vegetables with a sandwich in your hand, looking dumb with your mouth full and a big leaf of lettuce hanging out of your mouth. That same pretty girl comes by and sees you and she doesn't even get grossed out! She just cracks up fit to bust and points at you, then all the other cute girls start laughing, and suddenly you're on the front page of the paper looking like you were hit with a SANDWICH BOMB.

The headline reads:

"DUMB GUY CAN'T EAT SANDWICH!"

So just remember, when you're eating lettuce, be selective and be careful!

NO GIRLS WANT TO GO OUT WITH A GUY WHO WILL JUST EAT ANY LETTUCE

HAIRCUT CITY

The owner of the bakery told me I had to get a haircut. I don't have a camera, so I asked my friend Samuel K to draw it for me. This is what I looked like before:




I had really long hair a long time ago, so I cut like, one side, but not all the way down, and then I realized cutting your hair by yourself is hard and I had to quit, but then somebody told me it looked like a mullet and mullets are gross, so I made Enid cut it for me last night. She's good at things like this. This is what it looks like now:



It's shorter and I have a little ponytail behind my ear like Obi-Wan in Star Wars Episode I. Sam forgot to draw it. That movie was crap, but his haircut was pretty cool. Do all Jedis get haircuts like that when they're learning how to be a Jedi?

I got that haircut because I'm a baker's apprentice. Not a Jedi's apprentice.

Today we got my car all fixed up. Chuck has AAA and this guy named ALVIN came out in a big truck with flashing lights and chains and stuff on the back. He filled up my tires and I was READY TO GO!

But this is the problem.

Who let the air out of my tires!?

A mystery is afoot!!

Hup ho!

Let's get down to business!

Panhandling

Oh dear. I'm in such a pickle.

After I was short with Enid the other day, the wheels of fate turned on me! How could things get so bad? Oh, mercy!

I got off work yesterday and all the tires were out in my car! Out of air! They weren't out of the car! They were there, but they were empty!

But I guess they'd still be empty if there was air in them, because like, an empty jar still has air in it.

But there wasn't enough air!

So I couldn't drive it home. I always thought that like, I might be able to if I took the tires off and then put the car on a railroad track and let the rims run along the tracks like they were train wheels, but that would get me hit by a TRAIN and that would ruin my awesome car!!

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND WHITEWALL TIRES!?

I drive a 1957 Chevy Caprice that I bought from an old man who was dying. It was really sad, but he sold it to me for really cheap.

Anyways, so I had to walk home, but home is like... a long way! I couldn't walk! I could call a cab, but I have no money! My feet would get tired! So I had to come up with something fast.

"Think, Kojiro!" I said, "THINK!"

Then I had it. I once saw a man playing a guitar and getting change from passersby. They'd drop it in his guitar case and then he would say to them, "God bless, you, man."

I don't have a guitar, and even if I did, I can't play a guitar, so I decided to just walk and sing. The walking part was so when I got enough money, the cab wouldn't have to take me far.

I don't know many songs, so I was making my own up:

"Look out lady,
You're about to step in gum!
It could ruin your day
And make your foot stick to the sidewalk!"

And:

"I'm walking home
My tires are all flat.
My feet are so tired
Can I bum a ride?"

NOBODY EVEN LOOKED AT ME! I didn't get any change at all, except for a bottle cap I found on the ground that I thought was a quarter. But it was just from a beer bottle. So I guess I didn't get any change. I used the word "except" earlier. That word has an important meaning.

The closest I came to getting any attention or any change was from a dog. This old woman in a fur coat had this crazy looking, mean little dog that kept BARKING. So I started singing to the dog.

"Cheer up little puppy dog
Life's not so bad.
Put a smile on your face
But you don't have lips
So try your best!"

The dog just got mad and bit me on the hand and the lady drug the dog away.

I walked all day and finally got home HOURS later.

What a rotten day.

I'll never raise my voice to Enid again!

I've Got a Crush on a Girl.

She came into the bakery yesterday. I was working the counter because Stuart was in the bathroom and Mr. Valenzetti was at the bank getting change because we were out of dimes because I took all the dimes to put in my piggy bank.

You can't put a 10 dollar bill in a piggy bank.

She smells like flowers. Lilacs, I think. I don't know anything about flowers, so it could have been like roses or daisies or something. Do daisies have a smell? I bet the smell like summertime. But then again, summertime smells like sunshine and daisies probably smell more like flowers than they do sunshine. I don't think she smells like roses, now that I think about it. Dandelions. Do they have a smell? Maybe she smells like dandelions do if they had a smell, but if they do have a smell, and she smells nothing like that, I think I'd be disappointed.

I smelled her before I saw her. Whatever it is that makes her smell like that, it's strong, but not like WAY strong. It's like, when you walk past a house with a lot of flowers planted out front. It like, hits your nose on the wind and you're like, "Wow! Flowers! Hot dog, that makes me feel good!" So it's not like a bad strong smell, but a good one. Totally different from when I met one of my sister's teachers in Iceland a couple years ago and she smelled like perfume WAY BAD. I was dying! "Come on, open a window or something! My eyes are watering!" but I don't think she knew what I was talking about, or else she did and was mad at me because she thought she smelled good. Her perfume didn't smell like flowers, though. It was more like chemicals and spices.

I think that particular teacher was a diabetic. She had this weird box under her shirt down clipped to her belt, but it could have been a pager or a cell phone instead of an insulin pump. She only spoke Icelandic, and I forget the Icelandic word for diabetes, so I just asked her if she was sick. She told me she was feeling fine and that my sister is REALLY SMART. Totally way smarter than other kids! Wow! Good job, Hotaru!

Woah, hang on. Sidetracked.

She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and she smiled at me (The girl who came into the shop that I was talking about. Not my sister. My sister wears her hair down most of the time). She was wearing a t-shirt with the Batman logo on the chest, and that's cool because girls aren't supposed to like Batman. Girls like Wonder Woman or, I don't know, Superman or something. She had on jeans and she was carrying that old army backpack she's got.

I don't think she's in the army. She has asthma because I saw her use her inhaler once before coming into the bakery, and I don't think they let you in the army if you have asthma, but I could be wrong.

"Kojiro," she says, and my fingers go numb. That happens when I'm nervous sometimes. I'm nervous because she remembered my name! "Do you have any pumpkin bread?"

"I don't have any!" I told her, "But I made some this morning. I'm going to take some home with me when I leave, but I don't get off until four."

We make really good pumpkin bread.

She laughed, "No, I mean here. For sale."

"We have lots of pumpkin bread for sale, Ramona." Her name makes the rest of my hands go numb and I know I'm blushing.

I blush when I get nervous, too.

I sold her the bread and when I handed her change over, my fingers touched the palm of her hand and when I did I think she smiled! She smiled! She thanked me and left.

About that time, I realized Stuart was standing behind me.

Stuart likes to tease me because I've got the hots for Ramona a whole lot. I want to take her on a date.

"Do you want to take her on a date, Kojiro?" He's doing that creepy smile he does when he knows I've been talking to Ramona. "Did she give you a peck on the cheek? A little smooch on the cheek, yes?"

"Shut up, Stuart!" I tell him, "Shut up!"

"Oooh! She's your girlfriend isn't she? Isn't that what she does?"

"You're crazy, Stuart! You're crazy!"

Stuart teases me and talks in a high voice, and I ran off into the back to check on the doughnuts.

Stupid Stuart.

Stupid and Stuart have the same first three letters.

I just noticed that.

When I got home, Enid was doing the dishes and I tried to talk to her about how to ask a girl out, but she was talking to Chuck on her cell phone and wasn't listening to me.

"I've got a crush on a girl!" I yelled. "Hey, hey, can you hear me!?"

"I can hear you," Enid said, "But Kojiro is yelling and it's kind of hard to make out what you're saying.

"Tell Chuck to shut up a minute!"

"What, Chuck?"

"I give up! Here's some PUMPKIN BREAD!" and I dropped it on the counter and ran off to my room.

I doodled little pictures of me and Ramona in my diary. In one, she's kissing me on the cheek.

She's never kissed me on the cheek.

But I want her to.

Stuart was right.

Stupid Stuart.