Bananapants

by Penny Reid

I noted his pin was moonstone. Ugh. New money. How odious. Yeeeeah. I was fully in character now.

“Studies show that keeping a ladder inside the house is more dangerous than a loaded gun. That’s why I own ten guns. In case some maniac tries to sneak in a ladder.” — Gravity Falls (2012–2016)

But being told something is true and accepting it as truth are separated by a mountain, one I was still in the process of climbing.

Meanwhile, my mom didn’t believe them, and this had caused stress between her and my dad. Legit shouting matches, with him always apologizing after the fact but never understanding her perspective or why she didn’t trust the experts. He used to say, “You’re too soft on him. He needs more discipline. He’s exactly like me when I was his age. Trust me.”

Hyperactive type is an inconvenience for everyone, thus everyone is motivated to “fix” it. Inattentive type is only an inconvenience for the person suffering from it, so it often gets written off as laziness, or ditziness, or flakiness. Good times.

He was a line-in-the-sand kind of guy. My sand had no lines. They kept getting washed away by waves, and I’d accepted long ago there was no such thing as controlling the ocean.

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” ― Vincent van Gogh, Attributed; The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

It’s all weirdos, trying to do their best, and looking like fools until they meet that person who makes them feel exceptional instead of foolish.”

“It’s all smoke and mirrors and pretending, honey,” she went on. “Everyone is in various stages of falling apart. All the time.” Stepping forward, she cupped my cheeks between her palms, like she used to do when I was little. “Some people are just better than others with their smoke and mirrors, and how often and how well they lie to others. And to themselves.”

I wanted a relationship with my dad more than I wanted to be right about being wronged.

Now we’d have to burn the chair.