"francis escapes" original air date 02/27/00

i don't know what happens to guys when they get older and start dating girls, but it's not going to happen to me. francis just did the stupidest thing he's ever done. he snuck out of marlin academy, hitchhiked here from alabama, and braved mom's wrath just to be with his girlfriend, beebee--you know, the one who shoplifts and still can't remember my name.

i found francis hiding in the creek behind the house. he was covered in mud and god, did he smell. he wanted me to help him, which was kind of cool because he trusted me. he had me carry a letter to beebee (which i had to explain to her). keeping his secret turned out to be a real pain. i was starving because i gave him all of my food, and it was hard to keep mom and dad off the scent. finally, i broke. mom was so worried, and then she gave me that look. i squealed before i even knew what i was saying. i feel really bad that i betrayed francis, but i still don't know what the big deal with beebee was. at least i had the presence of mind to give francis a head start.

"stock car races" original air date 04/02/00

i don't know how mom does it. somehow, she sensed i was having a good day and was waiting at home with stacks of evidence against the whole family. how did she ever find that stuff? i'm awaiting sentencing now.

the day started with me planning to ditch school again. (mom found out about that, too!) caroline has been doing a unit on square-dancing. square-dancing! i thought i was busted when dad offered to drive us to school, but instead he took us to a stock car race. it was cool for the first lap or so, but then it started getting really hot and boring. reese and i went exploring and got a few good minutes of playing with power tools in before being captured by security. while the guard was turning us over to him, dad did the most amazing thing. he actually kicked the guard so we could get away. i never realized how cool dad is. until we got caught by mom, it was a really great day.

"red dress" original air date 01/16/00

i think something is wrong with mom. one minute, she was furious at us, and the next minute, she actually let it drop. she just gave up. no confession. no punishment. nothing. and then she took us out to dinner. it must be a trick.

tonight was mom and dad's anniversary. they had this big fancy evening out planned, but mom never made it to the restaurant. she found her new, red dress burnt and shoved in the toilet. she went into full interrogation mode--separate interviews, dizzy izzies, standing in the corner--but no one would confess. we still don't know who did it, though fire is a reese staple. then again, only dewey is stupid enough to leave evidence somewhere mom can find it. anyway, the point is we weren't getting anywhere and we needed help. only one person had ever made mom that angry before: francis. we managed to secretly call him. he told us it didn't matter who burned the dress; we all had to hang together. and it was actually working, until mom caught us on the phone. we thought we were dead, but then mom had mercy on us. i think she must be sick.

while we were in lockup, reese asked me if i'm just going to get smarter and smarter and weirder and weirder. i don't know. am i?

"lois vs. evil" original air date 03/19/00

i'm so glad to finally be wearing clean clothes again.

mom just got her job back, which she shouldn't have been fired from in the first place. it was all dewey's fault. he wanted to prove to me and reese that he was old enough to pull a prank, so the dufus stole a $150 bottle of cognac. mom marched dewey back to the store, but the manager fired her anyway.

that's when the economizing/torture began. we had to drink lumpy condensed milk and eat runny powdered eggs. if that weren't bad enough, julie houlerman (julie!) organized a school canned food drive for my family. so we not only had no money and were wearing recycled clothes, but now we had a bunch of crummy food no one would eat. oh, except for dad, who mistook some really old peaches for olives.

actually, a trip to the emergency room is not as much fun when you're not the one injured. the hospital bill made mom finally ask for her job back. i didn't want to tell her that she was going back on her principles, but luckily, reese did it for me. not only is mom back at work, but her boss actually resigned. i don't know how she does that. does her yelling work on adults, too?

"malcolm babysits" original air date 02/13/00

have i mentioned that i love money? i love the way it smells. i love the way it feels. i loveokay, i swore i would stop that. the point is i have a giant wad of cash from babysitting. i did the math, and i was getting paid more per hour than my parents for doing nothing. the kids were in bed by eight! i have to find a job like that when i'm an adult.

there are so many ways i could spend this money, but i think i may save it because i don't think i'll be getting any more real soon. i can't believe i'm saying this, but my family's actually kind of cool. at least, compared to the inksters, who are big, fat liars. they had this big house with all this food and gave me tons of money, but it turns out that they're a bunch of phonies. which sucks because i really trusted them. i thought i was part of the family. tonight i discovered that all this time, they've had a nannycam spying on me. what kind of family spies on each other?

not that my family's any picnic. this week we officially became white trash. i knew we were teetering on the brink, but i didn't think it would happen overnight. the house had to be tented, so we were staying in a tiny trailer on the lawn. it was like sleeping in an oven and don't get me started about pork and beans night. all of a sudden, my parents were screaming at each other, and dad was sleeping on the lawn in his underwear. one thing about my family, though: no matter how weird they get, at least i always know who they are.

by the way, why did francis want to know how to attach a head to a dead body?

"home alone 4" original air date 01/23/00

okay, so mom and dad went away for the weekend, and my brother francis came home from military school to watch us. he did a great job, too! look at all the things we learned with him this weekend.

1) you can't trust anyone whose best friend is named "circus."

2) no matter how hard he pulls, a six-year-old can't actually remove a human nose.

3) a spinning bicycle tire can't be stopped with your teeth.

4) you should practice with something else before trying to juggle kitchen knives.

5) in a pinch, you can treat a head wound with frozen chicken.

6) emergency rooms don't have lay-away plans.

7) if you drive a car backwards, the mileage won't show up on the odometer.

8) honesty is the best policy. (actually, nothing from this weekend proves that, but i thought i should throw that in.)

"shame" original air date 02/06/00

okay, so i did something really bad. definitely the worst thing i've ever done. even worse than--well, mom sometimes reads this, so never mind. i beat up a seven-year-old. i mean, i didn't know he was a seven-year-old. he was gigantic! he must have some sort of disease. i don't know what happened. he was really annoying and he was picking on stevie. then he took the last two pieces of pizza, and i was stuck with american goulash. i just snapped. can you blame me? i started pummeling him. i was actually enjoying it; i'd never done that well before. the next thing i know, i'm in the nurse's office and he's crying that he's seven.

i don't beat up little kids. (dewey doesn't count.) i still have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. i feel like such a thug. the worst part was that no one in this family seemed to realize i did anything wrong. they just thought it was funny. no wonder i don't know how to act. i tried to do something really good to make up for the bad thing i did, but that didn't go right. i even went to church. that's when mom got suspicious. she finally told me this feeling is my conscience, and the fact i get sick means i'm a good person. this conscience thing sucks! i wonder how reese got away without having one. one last thing: mom and i need to stop having these little heart-to-heart chats in the bathroom--or dad needs to learn to wait!

"rollerskates" original air date 04/30/00

i always knew there was something weird about dad's famous skating lessons.francis would always wince when the subject came up, and reese would get very quiet. but i was sick of running back and forth playing street hockey, while everyone else was on blades. i finally asked dad to teach me. i don't think anything could have prepared me for dad: disco roller boogie champion. he's amazing, but there's an awful lot of...butt wiggling. i didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified.

he bought me these awesome roller blades, but wouldn't let me have them until i'd completed the training. the lessons were a real drag. at first, he wouldn't let me use any skates at all, and then i had to wear plastic toddler skates. i couldn't take it anymore, and tried to steal my skates to go out and play hockey with reese.

dad caught me, and before i knew what i was saying, i heard myself blurting out the f-word. the worst part was dad didn't punish me or get mad or anything. he just avoided me. he ended up making me read a long list of terrible insults to him so i could see how words can hurt. it was hard to get through, but i swore i wouldn't let dad down again.

so now i'm a monster at street hockey, especially when i'm listening to disco music. i may look silly, but i kick ass.

"krelboyne picnic" original air date 03/12/00

so, i've finally been embarrassed in front of everyone in the world, including francis. this weekend, mom made us all go to a stupid circus put on by the krelboyne class. it wasn't even a circus--it was just krelboynes showing off their nerdy skills.

francis was home and got stuck coming with us. he was totally cool, though. he and i were going to sneak out of the picnic together. but then he got caught up with some girl he just met, and i was trapped.

caroline really wanted me to do my act because everything was going so badly, but there was no way i was going to show everyone that i was a freak. i tried to create a distraction with stevie's chemistry set, but i think i may have made a mistake because there was a gigantic explosion. i should have been happy because it meant that we could go home, but caroline was crying, so i finally agreed to do my math thing. just as i expected, my family looked at me like i was some sort of alien. it wasn't until francis flipped me off and reese burped on me that i knew things were back to normal.

"sleepover" original air date 02/20/00

after years of living in a museum, stevie finally went on a real adventure, thanks to me. stevie had me come sleep over. he kept calling me to make sure i was coming. i don't think he'd ever had someone stay over before. no wonder, because his parents had so many rules, we couldn't do any of the stuff i had planned. no playing games. no building models. his parents still haven't given me back the exacto blade they confiscated. his parents don't even let him have real pizza.

we were in bed before the sun went down! luckily, i talked him into sneaking out to go to the arcade. you'd be surprised how hard it is to get a wheelchair through a window. we were having a great time playing video games, until i noticed stevie's wheelchair was missing. who steals a wheelchair?

so, then we had to get home from the bad part of town. believe me, stevie's not as light as he looks. just by chance, we ran into the wheelchair thieves and i managed to fight them off. (okay, they just ran away. but if anyone asks, i kicked their asses.) i hope stevie's parents weren't too rough on him when he got back. i made a hasty escape when i saw the police car in the driveway.

"funeral" original air date 04/09/00

you might say that what happened today was my fault, but if you really think about it, it was aunt helen. if she hadn't died, julie never would've slid headfirst into our garbage.

see, julie and i were supposed to go to a concert together, but because of the funeral, mom made me cancel. normally, i would've hatched an escape plan, but this was mom's favorite aunt. i had to go. julie was going to go with someone else and have all kinds of fun, while i was stuck wearing reese's old, sticky suit. all reese cared about was trying to hide dewey's present that he destroyed. he was going to stash it with aunt helen in the coffin. he figured no evidence, no crime. i don't know why they let him watch lawyer shows.

then i found out mom hated aunt helen. i decided to ditch the funeral and told julie to come over. i tried lying to mom, but she quickly called me on it. so i finally just refused to go. why should some relative i hardly know and no one liked, ruin my day? i must have made a point, because the next thing i knew, mom got mad, then dad, then reese, and all of a sudden, no one was doing anything for anyone. i felt bad, but i had to get ready for the concert. julie showed up and somehow got past everyone and saw me in my underwear. she screamed and ran. by the time i caught up with her, she had slid into our garbage and said she never wanted to see me again. it was a disaster. something had to be done. i knew the only way to get my family talking again was by having a scapegoat. so i ratted out reese. we made it to the funeral on time, and everyone's fine again, except reese, who i should probably avoid for a few days.

"cheerleader" original air date 04/16/00

i finally discovered something worse than being a krelboyne: being a male cheerleader.

i knew something was up with reese. he just seemed different somehow, but i couldn't quite put my finger on it. turns out he'd been showering...with soap. there had to be a logical explanation. then, i caught him crying in the bathroom. i discovered the reason: wendy. reese liked this girl and didn't know what to do about it. i was torn between really, really wanting to make fun of him and actually feeling bad for the guy. i was surprised, but i found myself helping reese. i told him he should find out what she likes and try to take an interest in it. so, the nimrod goes and joins the pep squad. i mean, girl cheerleaders are fine, but boy cheerleaders... that kid who's always smelling his hands is a cheerleader. 'nuff said. even the krelboynes make fun of them. plus, reese sucked. he couldn't remember the routines. unfortunately, i could, and reese forced me to help him practice. i also suggested that maybe he should finally talk to wendy. i guess that worked because she told reese she liked him, right after reese injured half the pep squad by knocking over their pyramid. wherever reese goes, pain seems to follow.

speaking of girls, dad gave us all this really weird talk about how we're going to be idiots around woman until we finally end up with someone like mom. no. no way.