pencil neck geek brain

that’s what kahle christened me, when he was 4 and i was 11. his mom, terra, is the softest fruit on our already dangerously bruised family tree. her name evolved from dorothy, to terry, to terra lynn, and now, simply terra. in her younger days she was leather mini and thigh highs, screwing rockstars hot. she had a headshot, from a bassist called ‘the general’, autographed, “to terra- tight pussy, i like that.”

now she’s all growed up, with a teenage son. and she’s forcing him to make an offering to the tree gods. this was a family picnic, not a native american or other shaman type festival where offerings were expected. and the offering she was pushing him into making was a dixie plate piled with spaghetti. poor kid. stuck giving thanks to the tree of life bearing nothing but a clump of limp noodles doused in prego.

but kahle is good and game and loves his mom. so, schemes or no, crazy or no, he plays it like she wants it.

terra complains that the fairies stole her car keys. again. he helps her call out to them “okay, fairies, you got me, can i have ‘em back now?”

terra feels guilty when a past life reading reveals that in a former life she was an egyptian temple whore forced to abort a past life kahle. he assures her that the life of a temple whore’s kid probably wouldn’t have been that hot anyway.

terra decides to abort a present life pregnancy, but apologizes to the unborn fetus through a spirit mediator and then saves some of the blood on a crystal, which she throws into the ocean with a wing and a prayer. he doesn’t know about that one. thank god.

so many kids are just entitled and angry and bitter. and okay, fine. but then there’s kahle, who manages, despite having a mother who once complained loudly that my dad didn’t enjoy receiving oral sex from her enough (she dated my dad during my teen years), to be the sweetest goddamned kid on earth.

without even knowing it, he shows me daily what it means to be human.

mostly, i’m still an ass. but at least i’ve seen the grail. and it calls me pencil neck.