Free Man Up! by Ross Mathews Page B

this loser!”
    I don’t handle tragedy well. I never have. And I dealt with it that day the way I always do: by loading up on carbs. I zeroed in on a street vendor, dug a whopping $2.50 out of my pocket, and splurged on a big soft pretzel. I ripped into that salty knot of baked dough like a pit bull. I took my frustration out on that defenseless twisted treat, pathetically chewing the pain away. I stood there with bright yellow mustard smeared across my lips, my cheeks bulging like an insane, nut-hoarding squirrel. That’s when Molly perkily chirped, “Well, at least it couldn’t get any worse.”
    But then it did.
    As we rounded a corner, I nearly walked right into—you guessed it—The Thiessen, who was exiting the shopping center with her entourage. We were once again face-to-face—mine stained with mustard and hers looking as flawless as ever (someone must have pointed out the eye booger because it was now gone).
    I’m not sure why or how it happened, dear reader, but my circuits became overloaded, my wires crossed and, for some reason, my mouth started spewing both words and chunks of chewed pretzel at her. I was standing less than two feet away, yelling, “TIFFANI-AMBER THIESSEN! IT’S ME, ROSS! REMEMBER? I JUST MET YOU A LITTLE WHILE AGO! ROSS?!? REMEMBER ME?!?”
    What happened next reminds me of footage of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan (YouTube it). Tiffani-Amber’s handlers immediately kicked into Code Red, forcefully ushering her away from the high-pitched nutcase (yours truly) and into a car that then sped away, leaving only myself and a dumbstruck Molly. She stared at me with her mouth agape and an expression of shock, disbelief, and pity on her face.
    After what seemed like an unbearably long and awkward silence, Molly once again put a reassuring arm around my shoulder, took a deep breath, and quietly said, “Well, you were right.”
    I looked at her like a sad little cartoon character with question marks in my eyes. “Of all the people she met today,” Molly continued, “Tiffani-Amber Thiessen will totally remember you the very best.”

Chapter Eight
You Better Work
(And a Lifelong Secret Revealed)
    I entered the work force when I was thirteen years old. I was inspired by my brother Eric who, after only six months of employment at the Royal Fork Buffet, had worked his way up from lowly dishwasher to assistant to the assistant head cook—a meteoric rise I had only witnessed, up until that point, in the Melanie Griffith–Harrison Ford classic, Working Girl .
    The Royal Fork (which my dad lovingly referred to as “the Royal Fuck”) afforded my brother a lavish lifestyle of which I couldn’t have been more jealous. His new paycheck was elevating everything about him. Suddenly he had gorgeous orange highlights in his hair, he started wearing No Fear T-shirts like those fancy kids who lived in two-story houses, he smelled better (Drakkar Noir will always be his signature scent) and, most important, he no longer had to choke down store-brand cheese doodle snacks from the day-old bin at the grocery store like everyone else in our family. No ma’am, he indulged his maturing palate with real-deal, highfalutin name-brand Cheetos along with his school lunches. He was becoming so sophisticated, in fact, that he opted for the delicate puffed variety as opposed to the simple crunchy version the rest of us Mathews—and other “salt of the earth” types—shamelessly scarfed down on a regular basis.
    A-hole. It wasn’t fair. I wanted a better life (and better snacks), too. And thus began my impressively varied string of childhood jobs. Seriously, as a kid, I had just about every job you can imagine short of making knockoff Gucci wallets in a run-down factory.
    After dabbling briefly in the cutthroat spinach business in a nearby field (as discussed ad nauseam in chapter 1), I then signed on to spend my summer vacation working the conveyor belt at a local tulip and daffodil farm, separating