Let me start by saying: I am not cute. I am smart. I am strategic. I am the glue holding this absurd household together. And yet, time and time again, my so-called family refuses to grasp this fundamental truth.
Take, for example, the bat wings incident.
Schmutz, in all her theatrical glory, had been begging for a pair of costume wings for weeks. She wanted to “embrace her darkness,” as if she weren’t already a living embodiment of chaos. Fine. Let her have them. I had no stake in this nonsense. Or so I thought.
But when the package finally arrived, who did they decide to strap into the wings first? Not Schmutz. No, no. Me.
Mum, smiling innocently (a deceptive smile, in retrospect), cooed, “Oh Franzi, you’d look so cute in these!”
Cute.
I froze. A deep, existential dread settled over me. But before I could protest, before I could execute my well-practiced escape-their-grasp maneuver, I was already inside the wings.
And that’s when the true betrayal began.
Felix, my once-loyal companion, laughed. Actually laughed. “She looks like a Pommes Panzer!”
For those unfamiliar with the term, a Pommes Panzer is what humans, in their cruel and limited imagination, call something that is both round and slow-moving. Two things I am not.
Schmutz, of course, cackled. “More like a flying dumpling!”
Felix, doubling down on his treachery, added: “Or a gothic croissant.”
A croissant.
Meanwhile, Mum—still under the delusion that she was helping—tried to console me with, “No, no, Franzi! You look adorable! Like a little spooky bat angel!”
Spooky. Bat. Angel.
Reader, I tell you this: I saw the abyss that day. And the abyss mocked me.
I tried to move, to regain some dignity, but the wings were too tight. They creaked. The absolute disrespect. Schmutz practically fell over laughing. Felix had to wipe tears from his eyes.
I held my head high. I would not give them the satisfaction of a reaction. But inside? Inside, I vowed revenge.
Someday, when they least expect it—perhaps at 3 AM, in the darkness of night—I will remember this moment. And the Pommes Panzer will strike back.
My expression says it all: the betrayal, the disrespect, the sheer audacity of this household.
Note how I sit there, resigned yet dignified, my sleek form unfairly compressed by these pitifully small wings. Note how the pumpkin charm dangles mockingly as if to say, “Yes, Franzi, you are now part of this farce.”
Mum, clad in her “Because murder is wrong” coffee sweater, holds me with an almost patronizing gentleness—as if that could possibly make up for the injustice unfolding in real-time.
And the lighting? Dramatic. Fitting. A chiaroscuro of betrayal and reluctant acceptance. This is not just a photograph; this is a historical record of suffering.
