My mother’s English prevented her from reading the book. I did, however, let her know what I had written. She gave me her blessing but had a few questions. “Did you mention that I never left you with a babysitter, even though I could have? Did you mention that I nursed you for over two years and how difficult you were to wean? Did you mention how I was always at home when you returned from school, that you never came home to an empty house?”

Although none of the above made it into the book, any mother who gives her blessing to a memoir that mocks her accent has the right to tell the world that I was a pain to wean.

And this brings me to the main character in my book, my father. When I started writing my stories, I had no idea that my father would figure so prominently. Often, I would start a story about myself, and by the time I was finished, it was about my father. How this happened I do not know.

When I first told my parents that I was writing stories about my life, their reaction can be summarized in one word: “Oh.” This is why I called Mrs. Sandberg first. My parents’ reaction, however, must be placed in the context of my past: I am a serial hobbyist.

It started in fifth grade, when I discovered how to order things from the back of comic books. Most of my purchases, sea monkeys being the exception, were under five dollars, so my father happily wrote the checks. He assumed that my new interest gave me something in common with American kids. It didn’t. I just liked receiving packages in the mail. Spy glasses, patches, decals, joke books—an array of cheap, useless paraphernalia gathered dust in my closet. The items never lived up to their descriptions, but that didn’t stop me. The U.S. Army, however, did.