Happy People Are Annoying

by Josh Peck

Sticking with the theme of high highs and low lows in the Peck household, in 1998 my mom and I found ourselves broke. Again. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I was twelve now and pissed. As I got older, the stress of being displaced started to weigh on me. There was always a sense of impending doom the months leading up to it—disaster was ahead. I’d notice my mom acting differently, incredibly stressed, tired, and then sort of manic as she went into hyperdrive trying to save us. Inevitably it always ended the same way, she’d tell me we had two weeks to pack up our stuff, and when those two weeks were up, we’d move back to Florida, or maybe California, or maybe just . . . just pack your stuff. She’d make it seem like it was on our terms, like we were choosing to live this nomadic life, right up until the moment we handed in our keys and had to figure out where we were sleeping that night.