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Who the hell do they think they are?

What the hell right do any of them have to decide I’ve been deprived?

Of what?

Deprived? Me? Right.

I’m so deprived.

Because I didn’t have a normal childhood?

I traveled all over the world, man, saw more of the beauty, wonders and joy it has to offer before I turned sixteen than most people will see in a lifetime. You wanna see deprived childhoods? Travel to a third world country sometime and see kids who have no idea where their next meal is gonna come from. Assuming, that is, they’re gonna get a next meal.

Yeah, I’m so deprived.

Because my mom’s an ex-hippie flower child from the sixties?

People assume because Naomi believes in love, peace, cleansed auras and the planets being in proper alignment it makes her some kind of flake. They have no fucking clue. Oh, that’s right. While little Timmy’s mom was baking cookies and going to country club dances, poor little Blair’s mom was spending the night in jail after being arrested for participating in a legal protest against the fucking war in Vietnam. Boy, do I have screwed up priorities because of that!

Yeah, I’m so deprived.

Because I don’t know who my father is?

Well, yup…ya got me there. Missed out on all that ‘dad didn’t show up again for my Little League game because he had to work late’. Missed out on all the alpha male ‘do as I say, not as I do’ bullshit. Missed out on all the ‘who gets custody of the kids after the messy divorce because good old dad was boffing his barely out of puberty secretary’ crap. Oh…and I was never grounded.

Yeah, I’m so deprived.

I own, clear and free, a piece of crap car.

I live pretty much from one grant to the next.

My home’s a run down, rat-infested warehouse.

And I’m on my way over to the hospital in a few minutes to meet this guy who just might be the Holy Grail of the subject I’m researching.

Yeah, I’m so deprived.