Free Adam Selzer by How to Get Suspended, Influence People

getting into pretending to be a rebellious fifties teen. This, in particular, made me want to stick my head in the oven.
    Half an hour later, we put the food on the table, and my dad sat down, looked at the cookbook, and said, “Oh, boy! I was waiting for Applesauce Day!”
    “I’m pissed off,” I said. “I can’t believe I had to go to school on Applesauce Day!”
    “Leon, watch your language,” said my mother. So much for playing along. I didn’t think “pissed” was a cuss word to begin with. My mother lived in fear of cuss words; the very mention of the infamous “f-word” would cause her eyes to bug out, unless it was being said by someone with a British accent. For some reason, she found it less offensive coming from the British.
    The food itself could have been a whole lot worse, I suppose. You couldn’t really taste the green beans all that well; it wound up just tasting like a whole plateful of hot, chunky applesauce. This was a relief, but it looked gross and I still had to endure the lame jokes my parents made about it.
    “Boy!” said my father. “Can’t you just taste that iron, Leon?”
    “It does taste kind of like metal,” I said.
    “He stirred the applesauce and green beans all by himself,” said my mother, as though this was the big deal of the year or something. “We’re going to have to start punishing you more often, Leon!” A decade of formal education and they were proud that I could stir.
    I positively shoveled the last bit of applesauce into my mouth to make sure I didn’t have to answer right away. By the time I’d swallowed it, I didn’t have to say anything, because my father was making comments about how the colors made it look like some sort of junk you could spread in your garden to make the roses look brighter. That was probably a better use for it than to eat it for dinner. Even if it wasn’t as horrible as most of the food disasters, it wasn’t exactly a satisfying meal. Applesauce is a side dish, not a main course. After I was finished, I was still pretty hungry. Call me a spoiled brat if you must, but being chock-full of iron didn’t really make me any less hungry.
             
    After dinner I sort of felt like a prisoner who had just eaten his last meal before being executed, with a couple of key differences. Number one, criminals get to request whatever they want for their last meal. I sincerely doubt that any criminal has ever asked for applesauce with green beans in it. Number two, going out to the garage to help Dad find a way to make matches respond to a finger-snapping sound wasn’t exactly the same thing as being executed. This is not to say that it was pleasant, but at least I had a better than average chance of surviving, provided that I kept my wits about me and didn’t blow myself up.
    After I cleared my plate, I tried to buy myself some time by going into the living room and turning on the television, flipping from one prime-time sitcom to another. Sometimes if you look busy, people will give you a few minutes, even if you’re just watching something stupid on TV. Did you ever notice how many sitcom families have pretty much the same living room, only with slightly different decorations? The front door opens right into the living room, and there’s usually a staircase behind the couch. I don’t know anyone who’s right inside their living room when they open the front door; this is just one of many reasons that sitcoms are pretty much pure crap.
    Anyway, this didn’t last very long. After about five minutes, my mother came in and told me it was time to go to the workshop. I walked toward the door to the garage, pretending I was about to face a firing squad. They would ask me for my last request, and I’d say that I wanted a bulletproof vest, and then I’d wink and give the onlookers a sly smile. Well, not really. If I was about to get shot, I’d probably just whimper and crap my pants. But since I knew I wasn’t going to get shot,