Monday, May 22, 2006

The Awesome Andersons

Jenni Anderson doesn’t want to spin 14 hula-hoops while standing on top of a chair that is teetering on her jumping father’s forehead. She wants to be getting rides to the mall from her friend Katie’s older brother, Thom. She doesn’t want to juggle freshly sharpened machetes while walking a tightrope held by her brother Russell and Uncle Eugene, who are balancing on huge brightly colored balls. She’d rather be wearing pink a lip gloss to Rec League baseball games to look at cute boys baseball caps. Why is she swallowing a flaming torch while submerged in a tank of sharks when she could be lying by her friend Christina’s pool and eating Fruit Roll-ups and tater tots? Jenni should be doing all of the things her friends instant message her about, but instead she’s stuffed in her family’s cramped RV, touring between waterlogged towns and musty theatres that have seen a better years.

She’s sick of answering awed audience members’ questions about her young age (14) and when she learned how to contort her body into a heart shaped medallion that swings from a cable in the air (She was 3). And if she has to take one more Polaroid with old ladies in green plastic visors and American flag t-shirts she’s going to scream. In the winter, she had to miss her favorite shows to train and now she has to miss reruns to her favorite shows to tour. But how can she stop? It’s what pays for her new Gameboy system, her father reminds her while he sharpens the Machetes, and if she didn’t tour with the family where would she stay?

Besides, her Mother repeats while sitting twisted like a pretzel at the RV kitchen table, everyone knows that she’s the most popular attraction.

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