My Family

Gaz

Most of the time I despise my life.

I am surrounded by idiots. The only remotely intelligent life forms alive are my dad and the people who created video games. Pigs too, I guess. They're not quite as brainless as people think.

I'll tell you who IS brainless, though. My brother. His name is Dib. Anyone will tell you how crazy and annoying he is. He's obsessed with anything "paranormal" – but as far as I see, he's not even normal himself. His whole life is dedicated to "studying" otherworldly junk. You should see his room. There're posters of chupacabras and the Loch Ness monster and crap on the walls, books and magazines about the supernatural everywhere, cameras and tape recorders for his little pointless field expeditions…It's so stupid. He even tries to get me to help him out. He really thinks he has evidence of all this stuff, but he doesn't. It's all in his head. His big, filled-with-crap head. When we're out in public somewhere and he starts talking about seeing a vampire driving by or something like that, it gets especially embarrassing, and of course maddening.

When he's not running around trying to gather his so-called "evidence", Dib's usually bugging me in some way. All I want to do in the evenings, for example, is be left alone, but he always has to be around me, planning for his next dumb attempt to get proof of whatever. He blocks my view a lot, with his big head, eats all the food that I would have wanted, and he never stops talking to himself. No matter how much I try to shut him up (and he does get scared of me), it never lasts too long. He's too obsessed. He's crazy. And it looks like he'll always be that way. Why can't I have a normal brother (or better, no sibling at all)?

Day in and day out I have to deal with Dib. I don't like it, but I don't have a choice. I can't really complain to Dad, because he's convinced Dib is just going through a very long insane phase. I doubt it. I'll be surprised if Dib ever changes. Once, he almost did drop his weirdo interests for good, which was at first very relieving, but then it became…even weirder because he got all droopy not doing it (a/n: see incomplete IZ episode "Mopiness of Doom"). It was a very strange feeling. Then, when Dib decided to go back to being a paranormal freak, everything went back to normal, but it was a disappointment at the same time. Ugh. If he could just be happy being normal, or being obsessed over something more sensible, then I'd be a little happier too, and I wouldn't have to be known as the sister of "that crazy UFO kid". I probably wouldn't mind him being my brother if he just acted respectable. Pfft. I don't know if I'll live to see that day…

But for now, I just have to wonder what just might make my brother sane. I can never figure it out. Not that I care much, but let's face it – Dib needs me around to knock some sense into him. Even if it only lasts temporarily.

Dad is just as much into actual, earthly science as much as Dib is into "paranormal science", but there's a big difference. Dad works according to legitimate facts. And, he's not embarrassing. Sometimes he gets ideas for inventions that are kind of outrageous, but he doesn't go around telling everybody about them until he completes them and knows they make some sort of sense. Like with Super Toast. For a while, the only people who knew about that idea were me, Dib, and some of Dad's colleagues at work, I guess. Once he completed it and gave logical reasons for it (as logical as you can get for something like toast, anyway) then it was somewhat practical. Dib can't do that with all his supernatural claims. So you can see why I don't mind Dad as much as I mind Dib.

Well, maybe there is something about Dad that I mind. It's…sometimes he really doesn't listen very well because he's thinking about his work so much. And sometimes it seems like he moves around really fast, in a blur. I don't know. He's not around very often – he works like crazy a lot because he's this big hero to the human race. Trying to make the earth a better place or something. As if that wasn't enough, Dad also hosts his own T.V. show where he can explain science to anyone who wants to know about it. Every once in a while I see an episode for a few seconds when I'm channel-surfing, but to me, it's not the greatest show on the air. Not interesting enough. Besides, I live with the professor himself – I've heard enough in person about how wonderful science is. My brother doesn't pay much attention to Dad's show either. Actually, the only shows he ever looks at are that stupid "Mysterious Mysteries" with all its pathetic "supernatural" stuff, and occasionally the local news. Which brings us back to the fact that Dib is not normal.

But anyway, more about Dad. He's really busy most of the time, like I said, but at least he trusts us to watch the house when he's gone (we each have a copy of the house key), and to clean up after ourselves and get to bed at a decent time (though Dib usually stays up late doing "paranormal studies" in his room). I guess he doesn't worry too much about us getting hurt at home because the house has a hard-wire security system that automatically activates at a certain time each evening. It's nice that Dad treats us responsibly (maybe me a little more). All in all, I don't mind Dad much. I only wish he wasn't so famous sometimes; that maybe he'd have more time to talk to us about stuff. Stuff that's not always related to science.

Dad had, in a way, always seemed like the answer to everything. I remember, when we were little, he'd fix anything that broke that Dib and I would bring to him, and he always had the right answer to any question. He was perfect; invincible. I guess everyone sees their parents that way when they're really young at some time, but our dad was even better. But now, I see him that way less, because I've recognized the point where he isn't so great – that is, it seems he tries to be too much of a hero to the world, and forgets almost everything else.

He was already enough of a hero to us.