Every day, I wake up to my normal routine in ‘middle-of-nowhere’ America. Still in my royal-blue pajamas, I enter our cream-tiled, master bathroom.

I brush my teeth.

I put on my black suit, buckle my black belt, lace my black shoes, and tie my black tie. My wife, the house-cleaning, hedge-clipping, taxpaying bitch, who is no more human than the stainless-steel appliances in our wallpapered kitchen, places a stack of perfect pancakes on the table. We ignore the ‘ugly’ pancakes that she has lucratively disposed of in the trash-bin beneath the sink.

Jefferson County’s Teen Spelling Bee champ of 2006, my daughter, launches a difficult word from her horrifying, metallic mouth into the morning conversation. Today it was vilification, “blackening someone’s name.” I frown and continue pretending to read The Daily Globe.

Brace-Face gets on the school bus, and Mrs. Perfection drives out to “Johanna Miller’s house to look at carpet samples!”

In the 5 minutes I have alone before driving out to work, I scream.