Teen Comedy

I just returned from the mall after school shopping with my soon-to-be sophomore and her friend. I now understand why fathers opt to go camping, roll around in elk urine, and shit in a hole rather than go to the mall three days before school starts. As if the crowds weren’t bad enough, my girl decided to wear a flannel that hung lower than her shorts, making it appear that she was walking around naked from the waist down. She was flocked by sales people, who, I am sure, were calculating their commissions in their heads. I mean, why not?

A Crafty Cigarette is the powerful story of a teenager coming of age in the '70s as seen through his eyes; who, on the cusp of adulthood, discovers a band that is new to him, which leads him into becoming a Mod.

The Grim, the post-mortem chaperone who collected me, is the crankiest Death in the greater Kansas City area. Understandable, since her job is to bag the souls of the worthless and rotten. Apparently I'm so crummy they made me her apprentice. There are so many other kinds of Death, and of all of them, I get lassoed to Miss Buzzkill, who loves to remind me I'm hers with her big green gargoyle finger, pointing and giving me her spooky come-hither. As the Grim's new involuntary Lackey, some of the rules are easy.