Doritos (and more short stories)

Doritos

"My dad ate all the Doritos last night," I tell Felix, my seat-mate on the bus to choir camp. It was the summer before 5th grade.

Felix had just looked into my open lunchbox, gawking at the apple slices, grapefruit sections, and a hardboiled egg. "Fruit. Egg," he said, wrinkling his nose. "That's gross."

"My dad ate all the Doritos last night," I said again. Then added, "My dad is nocturnal."

"Nocturnal?" Felix looks at me as though I had grown another head.

"Yeah, he sleeps in the morning and wakes up at night. He wakes up with the owls when the sun goes to bed."

"Haha, that's funny. Does he go to work at midnight and wonder why nobody is there? What about the movie theater? Does he go there at 3 AM when everybody's asleep? Though, that's smart. The movies are the cheapest then."

"No, he just eats all the Doritos and goes to bed when we leave for school."

"That's weird."

Dad has always gone to bed just as my younger sister and I would be spreading strawberry jam on our breakfast toast. Then he would sleep through the morning like a lazy cat sunbathing by the windowsill. He would be awake when my mom, sister, and I eat dinner, although sometimes he would go to his office.

Most of the time, it's not much of a problem, since Mom is not nocturnal. Most of the time, she can take my sister and me to school, piano, ballet, ice skating, soccer, and Sunday school. Most of the time, Mom can force me to practice piano every day and finish my homework.

It's not much of a problem except Dad snores all day and eats all the Doritos. One day, I see the party-sized bags of Doritos and Cheetos, waiting for Mom to pack some in my lunch. Then, I wake up and find they have disappeared, like a puff of smoke you swear was just there.

When I boarded the bus to summer choir camp that day, only Mom and my sister were there to send me off. The bus reeked of dust and old leather. Each seat was peeling, and the moment you touched it, brown triangles of paint coated your fingertips, like Doritos dust.

I watch as Felix laughs at his own joke as if having a nocturnal dad was the most hilarious thing he's heard of. As if having a dad who ate all the Doritos was something weird. I laugh with him, though the laugh was rough like the scratching of sandpaper. Each awkward laugh felt like a cough forced out of my throat.

The smell of old libraries and dusty books suddenly felt too strong on the bus. I looked down at my fingertips coated with chipped brown paint. My head swam with thoughts. Is it really that weird to have a nocturnal dad? Is everybody else's Dad awake and around during the day?

"My dad ate all the Doritos last night." It was meant to explain my family, but I don't know if anyone understands now.