Modern Weirdness - Tales from the Parallel Universe (Paperback)

Inside this book Life-lessons from the Parallel Universe Answers to life's biggest mysteries The strange quality of fish tanks that makes you want to climb into them... ...acting lessons from an exotic dancer... ... and the real reason letters arrive a little crinkly sometimes. Here are ten short stories about a baby who steals cars, the devil as marriage material, and mailboxes who just won't listen. Includes the award-winning "No Other Baby Can Do This," "Castaway," and an excerpt from the ABNA Finalist "Ghost of a Boy." This is not space ships and it's not vampires. It's life in the universe right next to ours. Maybe you've felt it too? Exerpt from "No Other Baby Can Do This" "At 10:20pm I am woken by a call from the Northampton Police. Uh-oh. My daughter is fine, but they have her down at the station - could I please come pick her up. Apparently, while I was asleep, she snuck out the window and crawled to the car. (Yes, she crawled - she isn't walking yet because she's taking her time with that. It doesn't mean she has a problem - they just work on one skill at a time. Guess how many words she knows ). She drove to Wal-Mart and grabbed all the turkey-rice-carrot puree that the change in the glove compartment would buy. My heart dropped. I thought she was done with all that. We've been working so hard on solid foods. The police found her passed out behind Pete's Tire Barn, little empty jars strewn all around. So embarrassing. "Embarrassment is not the issue, sir," the officer tells me. "It's a question of safety." "Of course," I say. But I don't know if he means because she was drunk on tryptophan, because there's no tri-point safety-harness in the driver's seat, or because she's 14-months old. I carry her to the car. She's covered with vomit. Or turkey-rice-carrot puree. It's hard to tell. And she vomits a lot anyway, so maybe this isn't such a... But there I go, justifying her behavior. Liam is the problem. I know it. Trouble from the day she met him."