What do you call a planet where bad guys stroll through life with success draped around their shoulders like a King’s cloak, while random horrors are visited upon the innocent heads of children? I call it Earth.

Not, like, that, boychik, you sound like a herd of elephants charging through a music store.

If you promise you will get better instead of dying, I promise I will, too.

I’ll probably just stand in a corner, trying not to be noticed, until the decoration committee accidentally packs me into a box at the end of the night. There I will lie, crammed in between rolls of crepe paper, until the New Year’s dance two months from now. Jeffrey thought about this for a moment and said, Won’t they notice the box is too heavy when they go to put it away?

It's amazing--my parents call everything a discussion. If I were standing across the street, firing a bazooka at my mother, while my father was launching mortar back at me, and Jeffery was charging down the driveway with a grenade in his teeth, my parents would say we should stop having this public "discussion".

Me: Well, you see, I, uh, I'm a cancer survivor. Person #1: And how's that working out for you? Me: Well, you see, I, uh, used to have leukemia. Person #2: Dude, how come you're not, like, BALD? Me: Well, you see, I, uh, I had acute lymphocytic lymphoma when I was five. Person #3: Whoa. THAT must'a sucked. I once had my tonsils out.

You look like a handsome young man…although you might want to zip your fly. Mom! What? Should I have not told you and left it for everyone else to notice at the dance?