Oh, Brother

Somebody tried to kill my brother the other day. This guy tried to run over him, twice, during a high speed chase. Punk #!@*. I hate it when somebody tries to kill a family member. It just puts me in a bad mood, and it’s a reminder of just how dangerous Supercop’s job can be. Sometimes I forget that. I get lulled into security by the fact that he works in a small town. It may be small, but it’s no Mayberry. It has its share of loonies and weapon toting felons. Apparently, this punk #!@* didn’t know the cardinal rule of siblings. Nobody beats up on my kid brother except me.

I am the bossy big sister. There are five years between each of us kids, so I am five years older than Supercop and ten years older than Handy Man. That makes me REALLY bossy. I’ve never denied that, but I think it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve come to realize just how commanding I used to be when we were growing up. I was in charge of everything, no matter what we were playing. Rationality be damned when a hula girl-in-training is trying to get her way. I remember playing Batman and Robin and Zowie, Pow! Bipping my way out of a cardboard box jail even though I was Cat Woman. (We bought a freezer that year and we kids practically lived in the cardboard container all summer.) I have a distinct memory of standing on the back porch with my hands on my hips trying to justify to Supercop in his green blanket cape why Batman wasn’t ever going to win. Ever. No matter what happened on TV. Picture me stomping my foot.

Every now and then Supercop joined me in ganging up on Handy Man. There’s a picture of Handy Man when he was about three or four years old, dressed up as a girl. In our never ending battle against boredom, Supercop and I dressed up baby bro in a skirt, hat and fur cape and paraded him in front of mama in a one man beauty pageant. Handy Man is smiling in the photo because he’s too young to realize how much he’s going to hate that picture one day.

Today, Handy Man is a man of few words, and it’s probably because I sucked up most of the vocabulary genes. He waited to get a word in edgewise and gave up after about fifteen years. Supercop played Super heroes a lot when he was growing up, maybe as a way of standing out as the middle child. No wonder he fights crime today. Me, I like being in charge of stuff. It doesn’t matter what it is. As they say in these parts, I want to run the show. Punk #!@*.