Excerpt Three from Letters to Elisha Hamilton

“Dad, after just a few days of this crap, I understand where you were coming from when you were always yelling at me and Joel to do stuff. The idea of boot camp is genius!”

Two days ago, David lost another pair of glasses, so mom took him to the optometrist ($200,with a coupon) again.

While they were gone, a lady from DCFS rang the doorbell here at the cave entrance, asking to see David. She had a report, she claimed, that we were starving the child to death, so she wanted to see what he looked like for herself.

Oy vey. The lovely inquisitor turned out to be some lively entertainment, but she has things settled nicely by now, we think.

We hope.

Later, your mom and me sat in the living room and stared at each other for awhile. Then she went to crying how he had just gotten suspended from school for the day, as well as all the money for new glasses, and the poop in the cage, and the fleas…

I understood each point she made, but…

“Well, look on the bright side, hon. At least we don’t have cockroaches.”

She shot me a cold February look.

“Don’t ever say things like that -- you will jinx us for sure.”

…which led to an interesting theological debate.

Later on, I went out and showed David how to take the cage apart so it could be hosed clean.

And right after he lifted the top half, he came back inside to tell me what he just found.

Little German cockroaches…hiding in the gaps and crevasses of the cage…free from the great state of Texas.

Okay, so maybe I should stop looking on the bright side.