MY FAMILY IS FUBAR.

That’s the word my part-time friend Claudia used to describe her own family at school yesterday. I said I didn’t have a clue what that meant, and she said, “That makes sense, ’cause you’re clueless.” Then she told me it’s a military term. It’s short for “Effed Up Beyond All Recognition,” except in the military, they don’t say “effed.”

See, Claudia has been in a so-called blended family for a few years now. She has a wicked stepfather and two snotty-nosed little half sisters. So she totally gets the insanity that is about to happen to me.

I am only just-turned-fourteen, so Claudia says I have to wait another two years before I can hire a lawyer and get unconstipated. Wait. That’s not right. I keep having to look it up. I mean emancipated. According to Claudia, it means you can divorce your parents and be free of them for good. Claudia wants to divorce her family, too. So even though she’s a little chunky around the middle and doesn’t wash her hair enough and is not even close to my social status, she does kind of get what I’m going through.

What really bugs me, though, is that my family wasn’t always FUBAR. For twelve and a half years it was perfect. My dad works at an advertising agency, and my mom anchors the local evening news. They are both very good-looking for old people, and I’m not being arrogant but just stating a fact when I say I inherited the best from both of them. We have an almost-new silver Volvo station wagon, and until a year and a half ago we took a trip to Maui every March break. We have a big modern house with another, miniature house in the backyard that’s called a laneway home. Laneway homes are all the rage in Vancouver. They’re built beside the alleys that run behind our houses, where a garage would normally go. We had ours built just before my world came crashing down around my feet. My parents thought that maybe they would rent it out for a few years, then I could live in it if I went to university in Vancouver, even though my ninth-grade counselor says I need to “face the cold, hard truth” because a C average will not get me into university.

Again, I am just stating a fact when I say that my friends were jealous of me and my life. And I couldn’t blame them in the slightest. I would have been jealous of my life, too, if it hadn’t already been mine.

Then, a year and a half ago, my dad sat my mom down and said the two words that tore our family to shreds.

“I’m gay.”

None of my friends know that part. Not even my best friend, Lauren. I just told her my parents split because they were fighting all the time.

’Cause, see, there are Certain People who have this idea that I’m not a nice person. This is totally untrue and false and a lie. But Certain People think I’m a Snot (at least, that’s what some jerk wrote on my locker in eighth grade). Claudia told me Certain People were actually pleased when my parents split up, like I somehow deserved a little pain. I guess it is somewhat partially halfway true that I have made a few comments over the years about other people’s families (like, I might have told Violet Gustafson her mother was a skank before Violet broke my nose, which has fortunately healed so well you can hardly notice), but my comments were misunderstood. When I said that to Violet, I meant it more as an observation than an insult. But Violet and her friend Phoebe didn’t see it that way, so now I call them Violent and Feeble behind their backs, which I personally think is quite clever.

So I didn’t get an ounce of sympathy from anyone when my parents split. In fact, I got a lot of smirks from Certain People when they found out. Even Lauren’s sympathy seemed awfully phony, which I admit really hurt. That’s why there is no way I’m telling anyone the gay part. Not because Certain People are gayists (although I’m sure some of them are), but because they would love the fact that my so-called perfect life was built on one gigantic lie.

I guess, if I’m totally one hundred percent honest, I’m a bit gayist, too. I didn’t think I was. I mean, I love Geoffrey, my mom’s hair-and-makeup guy in the newsroom, and he is gay. And I see gay people on my favorite TV shows, and they seem cheerful and snarky and fun to be around.

But it’s different when your dad suddenly announces he is one. There is nothing cheerful or fun about that. It opens up a lot of questions. Questions that I don’t really want to know the answers to. Questions like: Did you ever really love us? Or was that a lie, too?

—

MY DAD TOLD MY mom he was gay on a Tuesday. By Saturday he had moved out.

Not to an apartment downtown. Not to Siberia, as I’d suggested.

Nope. He moved approximately six feet away from us, into our laneway house.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My newly gay dad couldn’t afford to get his own place unless he and Mom sold the house, which they both agreed would be too hard on me. So their genius solution: let him live in our backyard. Like, if I look out our kitchen window, I look into his kitchen window.

At first I figured it was just temporary. I figured Mom and I would bond over our hatred of Dad, and pretty soon our combined anger would force him to move out, and we would never have to see him again.

No such luck. Not only is he still living there, but Mom totally betrayed me. First, she just couldn’t stay mad at Dad. They are actually “working on being friends” now!!!! Second, she started dating her producer, Leonard Inkster, a year ago, which I am pretty sure breaks all kinds of workplace rules. And third—as if tearing out my heart and smashing it to the ground repeatedly wasn’t enough—my mom has asked Leonard to move in with us. And Leonard doesn’t come alone. He comes with his midget-egghead-freakazoid of a son.

Oh my God. Their moving van is pulling up right now.

I hate my mom.

I hate my dad.

I hate Leonard.

I hate his kid.

I hate my life.

Two more years till I can get unconstipated.