Take Your Daughter to Work Day

Originally published May 28, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1019

My Day on “Take Your Daughter to Work Day”

By Michelle Weizel

4th Grade

Mrs. Rosetti

April 29, 1993

For “Take Your Daughter to Work Day,” my dad took me to where he works with the American Justice Alliance. That is where my dad works because my dad is a super-hero. He has been a super-hero for a very very very very long time.

He was not always a super-hero. He was a super-hero for a while, and then he stopped being one when I was born. But when I was one year old, my ma was killed by bad guys and my daddy said he learned that day that he could not not be a super-hero because he always had to fight bad guys.

He also says that he is waiting for mommy to come back from the dead. I wish he would stop saying that. It’s a little creepy. He says he is sure it’s going to happen, but I don’t think so. And he tells my teachers that at the parent teacher conferences because he doesn’t like going to them, and he always tells my teachers, “Maybe next year my wife will have come back from the dead and she’ll come instead of me.” I know he is still doing it because my teachers point at me and whisper big words like “cycletherapy,” whatever that is, and how I’m going to end up riding one or something like that.

My dad’s name is Wylie Weizel. That is his plain name. But when he was a teenager he got some kind of powers from something nuclear. My teachers say that nuclear stuff kills people. My dad says that teachers don’t know anything about it and that nuclear stuff is really good for you. I don’t know for sure. I guess my daddy is right. But I still think he shouldn’t have big bunches of his hair falling out all at once like that.

His super-hero name is Wild Weasel. I think it’s a silly name myself. I told him so once. He told me that he had to call himself that because it was so close to his own name, and when you have an own name that could be made into a super name real easy, you’re supposed to do it. He says it’s a rule or something. I don’t know. In the comics, Clark Kent doesn’t sound like Superman and Peter Parker doesn’t sound like Spider-Man, and people seem to like them just fine. Daddy said I’ll understand when I get older.

The American Justice Alliance is a group of heroes like daddy, except I don’t think most of their names are as silly as “Wild Weasel.”

My daddy and I always have breakfast together. Today he made me french toast. Sometimes he makes me scrambled eggs, or eggs sunnyside up. He says breakfast is the most important meal of the day. He also likes prune juice.

He is always smiling and joking and being so nice. Which is why what happened when he took me to work was so weird.

Daddy put on his costume. I think his costume is kind of silly, but not as silly as his name. The silliest is his mask, but he says he needs the costume because he has to “get into character.” I’m not sure what that means, and he had trouble explaining it. He drove us to work in this special car he drives called the “Weasel Whacker.” He says that it’s called that because he uses it to whack criminals. But one time he had some of his super-friends over for a party, and they were making jokes about it when daddy was out of the room. I heard them from upstairs. I didn’t understand the jokes, and when I came down and asked about them his friends got all red and said it was nothing. That it was “the drink talking.” I didn’t know drinks could talk.

Daddy said today that he was on monitor duty. It’s kind of like being paid to watch television all day, except there’s nothing on that’s any good. He took me to AJA headquarters which is this big place inside of a big cave. You take an elevator to get down to it. The elevator plays music. I didn’t recognize the song. He said the person who sang the song is dead. I asked my daddy if he killed him, but my daddy just laughed.

Daddy took me to the monitor room. It’s a big place with all those TV screens. There was all kinds of things on them like streets and ambulances and stuff. My father said it was important to watch because it was real life. He got a little mad when I told him that Nickelodeon was better, and he said he didn’t know if he wanted me watching “Salute Your Shorts” anymore because it was stupid. I thought sitting around watching TV with nothing good on was stupid, but I didn’t say so.

What was weird was that daddy acted like himself when it was the two of us. But then another of his super-friends came in. He was this big guy who can make wind come up from nowhere. He’s called Major Blow, although sometimes daddy makes jokes about that too that I don’t understand. But he says them kind of softly to himself, so I don’t think I’m supposed to understand them.

Anyway, Major Blow came in and said something about daddy being “stuck with” monitor duty. And daddy started talking real strange. He didn’t act like himself at all. He started snarling and bending over and waving his claws. And his eyeballs disappeared and got all white, and he started using silly words like “Fraggin'” and “Holy Spit” and something that I didn’t understand at all but which sounded kind of like #*@&! I think all of them were supposed to sound like dirty words, but they just sounded silly.

And then daddy started fighting with Major Blow, which was really silly because they’re supposed to be on the same side. Daddy said something about “needing a workout” and Major Blow said “You had this coming a long time” and they started jumping around and blowing and weaseling and things.

They wrecked up some stuff and what was really weird was that they kept talking the whole time. Whole sentences and stuff.  I don’t know how they managed to do that, because I’ve seen fights at school between some of the bigger boys, and they don’t talk. They kind of grunt and slap at each other and push and shove, and the most they ever say is, “I’m going to tell.” So it was a weird fight.

I started to cry a little, and my daddy and Major Blow saw, and they stopped fighting. And my daddy said, “You made her cry!” And Major Blow said that my daddy had made me cry, and called him another one of those “cycle” words, and they fought a little more. I said I didn’t know why they were fighting. My daddy said it was to fill up time and to show how their powers worked. It seemed silly to me.

Then we heard a real loud noise. My daddy said it was the alarm. That there was a bad guy doing something real bad, and they had to go stop him. Major Blow said I should wait in the cave, but daddy said I was supposed to go with him to work, and this was part of work, and I should go.

So I went.

We went in this real fast jet and got to the place where the bad guy was. He was in this big building which my daddy said was a bank. There were lots of policemen outside, and they acted like they didn’t know what to do at all. My daddy and Major Blow said that they would handle it, and the policemen looked real happy. I don’t understand why, because I thought it was the policemen’s job to arrest people. If I had a job like that, I wouldn’t be happy having someone else doing my job for me. I think that’s lazy. Daddy says that’s the way it is.

The policemen said there were people still inside who the bad guy said he was going to hurt. And then someone got thrown right through a window. Major Blow saved them. Then another person got thrown out the window, and this time my daddy saved them. Major Blow said that with all these people being thrown out of windows, that the bad guy was probably the “Defenestrator.” My daddy said “fragging” and other silly words again. He was snarling a lot and kind of drooling, like he was real crazy. But at one point he winked at me. I think it was to let me know that it was all pretend.

Then daddy and Major Blow ran towards the bank, yelling and shouting and blowing. I ran after them. Major Blow blew open the bank doors, and there was the Defenestrator. He was very big and very mean looking. He talked real loud, and he didn’t have any eyeballs either, just like daddy. Except his eyes were red.

And his face was solid white, like a clown’s, but he looked a little scarier.

They started to fight. They talked a lot, too.

I didn’t want to get hit by any of the flying things, so I hid behind a desk. There was another little girl there. She was very pretty. She had black hair. She smiled at me and I smiled back.

I asked her who she was. She said her name was Stephanie. She said she was here for “Take Your Daughter to Work Day.” I asked if her parent worked at the bank. She said, “Kind of. He’s robbing it.” I asked her what it was like having a bad guy for a father.

She told me about what it was like at home, and it sounded pretty much like what we had, except her daddy likes cereal in the morning. Also sometimes she has to be by herself at home because her daddy is in jail. But that’s usually only for a short time, because he breaks out a lot.

She got a little mad when I told her my daddy was Wild Weasel and that he put her daddy in jail sometimes. She said that when good guys fight bad guys it isn’t fair. Because the good guys gang up on the bad guys, and that’s not right.

I couldn’t say she was wrong, because my daddy and Major Blow were ganging up on the Defenestrator. That was two against one. That didn’t seem fair.

So I walked into the middle of the fight and told them to stop. That it wasn’t fair, and that they should fight one against one. And Major Blow and my daddy got all red, and the Defenestrator laughed and said I was right. Daddy said this was grown up stuff and I didn’t understand. I said he was the one who taught me about fair is fair.

So my daddy fought the Defenestrator by himself, and got thrown out a window. And then Major Blow fought him, and he got thrown out a window, too.

And Stephanie and her daddy escaped.

Major Blow got even madder than ever, but my daddy said they’d get him next time. Major Blow said he thought that my daddy should never have brought me, and that “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” was stupid, and said he was glad he didn’t have any children. And daddy said something about being glad too and something about a jean pool being glad, and then they fought some more.

Daddy took me out to Friendly’s for dinner. He wasn’t in his costume anymore, and his eyes were back, and he wasn’t drooling or anything. And he asked me if I wanted to be a super-hero when I grow up. And I said no. I told him I want to be the person who fixes windows after fights. I think I can make a lot of money. He said I was probably right.

At night, after he tucked me in and read me a story, I snuck out of bed and called Stephanie, because she’d given me her phone number. We’re going to play together this weekend. She says her daddy has a neat makeup case that he lets her borrow sometimes.

I can’t wait!

(Peter David, writer of stuff, thanks Mrs. Rosetti for sharing her class essay with him. Unfortunately the other essay she sent, “My mommy goes to make a pørņ movie,” will not see print anytime soon.)