Thursday Thirteen

I have a brother. We are good friends now. As siblings do, we share a history that no one else has, a bond that reaches across miles, issues, and concerns that keeps us connected to one another.

That doesn't mean he wasn't a brat when I was growing up, though.

1. He cut all the hair off of my Barbie and Midge dolls.

2. When he was around two years old, he turned on the oven eye and caused my Mrs. Beasley doll to go up in flames. (This was technically my mother's fault; Mrs. Beasley had been attacked by the neighbor's dog and needed stitches in her leg. My mother laid her close to the oven so she wouldn't forget to fix her. After the fire there was no fixing poor Mrs. Beasley.)

3. He also swallowed an entire bottle of aspirin around the same time. Fortunately for him I saw him do it and had the sense to go tell my mother, even though I was only five years old.

4. When my parents killed chickens for freezing, I found it gross and abhorrent and could scarcely eat chicken for a year. My brother, on the other hand, chased the flopping, headless chickens all over the yard, having the time of his life. I think he was about five.

5. We used to fight on the bus. Once, in a fit of rage, he called me a "Playtex deodorant tampon" in front of everyone on the bus. (I can even point out to you the spot in the road where this happened.) The bus went quiet and the older girls were appalled. "Does he even know what he said?" one of them exclaimed. I nearly died of total embarrassment.

6. When I was dating my husband, my brother came into the living room and told him that when I sneezed, I opened up the tissue paper and looked at my snot. I don't know how he got out of that one alive.

7. He put a smelly sock in my pillow case.

8. He always woke before I did and urged me to get up and go see what Santa had left under the tree for us, much to my parents' dismay. They told us every year not to get out of bed until they called us, and every year we disobeyed.

9. He rode my bicycle and left it behind my father's truck. My father proceeded to run over it, and then spanked me for not taking care of my things, even though I had no way to know my brother had been riding my bike.

10. He and a neighbor boy asked me to count out my savings one day, and I obliged. He went and told my mother I was showing off even though I was only doing what they asked. She took it all away from me. It was about $200 worth of birthday money, etc. (I have always been thrifty.) About four years later, Mom found the box of money in a closet and couldn't remember where it came from until I reminded her it was mine. She gave it back to me then.

11. One day he left his jacket in the classroom. He asked the school bus driver if he could go get it, and she said yes. Then she drove off with out him, even though I protested. This was in the 1970s - no cellphones, etc. My parents both worked a good 30-minute drive away. I was stuck on the bus. I was in the 7th grade. When I got off the bus, I told the school bus driver off in no uncertain terms, calling her a liar and evil and everything else I could think of because my head was filled with visions of my brother alone at the school, crying. I am not sure how he made it home, but he did. The next day I went straight to the principal's office to report the bus driver. She had, of course, already reported me to the principal. Given the circumstances, I received no punishment, although I was admonished to watch what I said to adults.

12. A boy named Johnny Crowe kept picking on my brother and wouldn't leave him alone. I was a senior; my brother was a freshman. I confronted Johnny Crowe in the hallway. He taunted me and asked me what I was going to do about it, so I slapped him across the face. (Actually, I think I punched him. I seem to remember blood.) I received detention for that.

13. My most favorite memory of my brother, though, is something he said when I was about 11 and he was 8. While we were at the bus stop one morning, I asked him what he would do if something happened to me and I was no longer around. "I would cry until I died," he said.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 605th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.