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"return address" and all that stuff, but she doesn't wanna hear it. At Uncle Gary's last wedding, Gammie handed me a starter letter plus an envelope with her address and a stamp on it so I wouldn't have any excuse not to write. But I STILL haven't filled it in and mailed it yet. So now every time I walk past my desk in my bedroom, I feel guilty.

Gammie is ALWAYS making you feel guilty. Last year at Thanksgiving, I put a whoopee cushion on her chair, and she sat on it. A few days later everyone in the whole family got a handwritten apology letter from Gammie.

Dear Family, I am writing to apologine for the unfortunate As I have gotten older, I have found it more difficult to control my body, and I'm afraid my recent surgery may have contributed to my I hope that this unfortunate mishap does not become the lasting impression of what was otherwise a glorious and blessed occasion. Love, Sammie Sometimes I wonder if Gammie is just messing with everyone and does this kind of thing on purpose. Last Easter she invited the whole family to her house, but everyone had their own thing going on, and nobody went. Gammie called Dad on Easter Sunday and said she'd bought a scratch ticket and won the ten-million- dollar grand prize. Word got around the family quick, and everyone was at Gammie's house in no time flat.

But it turned out the scratch ticket wasn't a winner after all. Gammie didn't seem too bothered that she wasn't a multimillionaire after all, and I have a feeling she got what she REALLY wanted anyway. I hope I live to be ninety-five years old, because if I do, I guarantee you I'll be messing with people, too.

What makes me kind of nervous about going to Gammie's house in November is that it's time for me to get "the Talk." Every time someone in my family gets to be about my age, Gammie sits them down and talks to them about who-knows-what. I guess it's one of those elder-wisdom kinds of things. The last person to get "the Talk" from Gammie was Rodrick, and now I'm next in line. I'm hoping Uncle Gary breaks off his engagement so we don't have to

go down there, because the whole thing is making me a nervous wreck. Thursday We've got a new math teacher at our school named Mrs. Mackelroy. She used to teach kindergarten, and I don't think she's real crazy about middle school kids. We have math right after Phys Ed, so by the time we get to Mrs. Mackelroy's room, everyone's all sweaty from exercising. Mrs. Mackelroy complained to the principal and said she can't teach when it smells like a "monkey house" in the room, so the principal said that from now on us