He’s not so bad, most of the time.
He tortured me as a kid. Literally–tortured.
If you think I’m kidding, I’ll happily connect you with my childhood friends who will vouch for me. His constant assault on me included and not limited
Usually we are busting up about some name that he has just called me.
to:
1) (and sorry for the faint of heart): holding me down and allowing his saliva to hang down, LITERALLY CENTIMETERS PEOPLE from my face.
2) flatulating (again, sorry) into the phone when my friends called (on our long-corded rotary phone, kids). It’s really a miracle I had any friends.
3) taking my first serious boyfriend and slamming him up upon a locker BY HIS NECK . . .at least this is how I heard it happened. yeah.
Guys, I’m here to tell ya, if you had ever told me thirty years ago that I’d be hanging out with my brother voluntarily on a Saturday I’d have told ya to check your head–but yet, here I am thirty years later texting my brother to ask him when we’re watching the Penn State game together.
My seven year-old wrote this about his sister. I beg of him to wait until he’s older–he may actually start to like her a little bit.
I mean, the guy used to tell me he’d pay me a dollar if I made him peanut butter and jelly sammies, and I’m pretty sure he owes me like three grand with interest (hey Katie, want me to give you a dollar?) NO signs of payment forthcoming.}
Our dad died when I was fifteen. He’s done a darn good job of stepping in for him. Major sappiness stops here.
This summer we made a road trip to our hometown together, trekking 428 miles, that’s 7 hours, 50 minutes from Richmond (but who’s counting?) again voluntarily to visit family and friends we grew up with. It’s a trip my kids and husband dread and one that is not fun through winding Pennsylvania roads but one through which we wandered, almost ran out of gas, and laughed the entire way.
My brother and I at the 2012 PSU-UVA game.
Just a month later, we ventured a much shorter distance to Charlottesville to the Penn State vs. UVA game in Charlottesville, and although we lost by one point, we made great friends with a few new Cavaliers and literally smelled the sweat we were so damn close to the fifty yard line. Related: he will never let me forget that he secured us the best tickets we’d ever had to a PSU game.
In sisterly fashion, I wholeheartedly agreed and deemed him king of tickets from here until eternity or until we are too old to go to football games (which, ironicaly is when we will be dead. Because true fans just show up.)
So when my kids tell me they “hate their brother” or “can’t stand their annoying sister” I gently remind him that their uncle is now, shockingly, one of my best friends. My five-year old recently said,”Oh, Mama, Uncle KC is your bwother?” And when I shook my head yes, she said, “Wow, I just thought he was your friend.” Crazy.
And that, along with the fact that he texts me and still busts me after all these years, is one of my biggest surprises, and by far, greatest gifts.
