Contact

I got a few emails after my last post telling me what a crappy sister I am, which is funny because that’s not really mean. I’ve done worse things to my brothers. Far worse.

I’m an older sister, if I’m not going to make them tough, who will?

Ben had it easy, compared to my brother Jeff–who, by the way, totally deserved it 94% of the time. Well he probably didn’t deserve the bruises Matt and I left, but we were smart kids and knew what a pain in the ass he would end up being for us.

I was five when my parents brought Jeff home from the hospital, and Matt was four. The world as we knew it ended that warm July day. This new baby got all the attention. Suddenly my mom didn’t have time to listen to my tales of witches living inside my bedroom walls, or the extra time to make sure every single grain of Rice Krispies cereal in my bowl matched. Off-colored pieces were certainly going to be the death of me.

All her spare time was devoted to the care of this baby. This baby who did nothing but eat and shit, which was totally boring.

I convinced Matt that our parents would take Jeff back to the hospital if he were defective. I knew this because she did it with my favorite hula-hoop. Who cares if the pink sparkles rubbed off on the furniture—it just make the couch prettier.

Our plan was to make Jeff cry all the time. I heard my dad complain about crying babies once so I knew he hated it. Over the next three weeks Matt and I pinched Jeff every chance we got. He had bruises everywhere and howled constantly.

Sadly, the plan backfired when my parents spent more time with him than before. Trying to soothe a miserable baby is apparently quite time consuming. It also required taking him to the doctor more often to determine the cause of the bruising.

In the end my parents kept Jeff, and I spent the rest of our childhood finding other ways to torture him. Though now, I can’t help but wonder if my constant bruising is the universe’s way of telling me I was a shitty sister.