a sticky situation

September 18, 2012 at 6:00 am · Filed under stories and tagged: breaking the rules, brothers, bullying, siblings, sisters

< by Anna, a writer and big sister >

There was a window of time, a despotic age in my life, when I was about 10 and my younger brother believed every word that came out of my mouth.

After watching an episode of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where Pee-wee walks up the wall and across the ceiling wearing suction cup shoes, I convinced him he could probably do the same if he put glue on his feet. So we got a bottle of Elmers and he lay down, back flat on the floor with his tush scooted up against the wall. He slathered his bare little soles in white glue and slowly started stepping up the wall, one foot in front of the other. As his legs extended, leaving glossy, glue-y footprints dripping behind them, we heard our mother coming down the hallway.

“What are you two doing in there?”

“Nothing.” Which everyone knows means “something.”

She opened the door to my room, saw her glue-covered child and wall, and yelled. His expression was a mix of guilt for being caught and confusion at not being halfway up my wall. Cleaning and punishments ensued.

This was just one of many such incidents. I told him he could give the hamster a bath. I told him I would not hide in the shower when he went to the bathroom.

The day finally came when his height and weight surpassed mine, so the big sisterly bullying came to a natural end. He grew up to be a kind, well-adjusted adult with a wife, job, and preference for always keeping the shower curtain in the open position when not in use. And, bless his cotton socks, he never tried to get back at me.

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