Jerchele Acts Out-- Chapter 1 Episode 15

The new house. Finally, a family sit down dinner!

For a few precious days, all seemed well with the Gratz-Ann household. Until Michele noticed something. . .

Her little man, her heart and soul and the spitting image of her dear, hardworking husband, was not adapting to the move very well. Instead of happily creating superheros at his ink and paper station, Jerchele spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the TV.

Boom ticky ye ish weeba booba wocken

He never did homework, he just. . . watched TV all day long. It was alarming. His dad tried talking to him.

Son, you don't want to grow up stupid, do you?

Michele sat down for a heart to heart

You had such great aspirations, Jerc. You're going to be the next Torch Bearer. Is it because your nickname is Jerc?

When this produced no results, Michele did the unthinkable: 

And it'll stay this way until you start doing your homework!

But this only produced even stranger behavior.

What the hell was he doing in the shower for 3 hours?

Sometimes he stood, staring into space with a strange, far off look on his face.

Maybe I should take another "shower".

And, one of the strangest things he did was, when he was asked to take out the garbage, he looked into the bin. And looked into the bin. And came thisclose to making in his pants.

Mmm. . . garbage.

It seemed her little boy was broken and  Michele did not know what to do about it. She despaired. 

"Jerchele, please come inside and stop hanging around outside beside the garbage. You never know what sort of unsavory folk hang out around there."

"Oh mommy, not unsa. . . uns. . . uh, mean people. There was a really nice man. He said I should call him "uncle"."

"For God's sake, Jerc. Don't talk to strangers!"