Oh Brother!

I can't resist a good joke, even if I am the only one that thinks it's funny. I don't go out of my way to create a situation, but once the thought gets into my head, it's like holding in a sneeze, or stopping myself from urinating in midstream. For example, I went out on a date with an older woman, one that was my current age fifteen years ago. We stopped for a drink at a local bar and the doorman checked her id, then, offering no explanation, lightly pinched her wrist between two fingers and his thumb. She gave me a puzzled glance, and I promptly said, "He's checking for a pulse."

She didn't think it was as funny as I did.

My step-mother made blueberry muffins when I was nine. There was one for me and one for my four year old brother, but I had already eaten mine. I was washing dishes when my brother discovered that he still had his, and was delighted to find out that his was the only one left. He held his blueberry muffin aloft and paraded around the house, chanting, "I got a blueberry muuuuu-ffin, and you don't got one." He walked past me several times, and through the living room where mom was watching television, thoroughly enjoying himself, and never took a bite.

I was getting annoyed, and told him to just eat it, which had the effect of a half twist of the volume knob. He toured the livingroom once more and headed back to the kitchen, holding the muffin before him like a candle at Christmas mass, which brought it to the level of my rear end, which coincidentally was reaching critical mass. A poetic rebuke occurred to me then, like sweet lilting music or a Shakespearian sonnet. Never had the fates been so kind. As he passed by me, his muffin in perfect position only inches away, I let it go with astounding force, and the impact was more than I could have hoped for.

He screamed, "You farted on my blueberry muffin!"

I was laughing too hard to respond.

John ran into the living room and yelled, "Mom, Scott farted on my blueberry muffin!"

She ran into the kitchen in mock rage, but I thought it was real. She stood at the entryway and yelled at me, "Scott, did you fart on John's blueberry muffin?"

I started with my dopey, I'm in trouble voice, "Yeeees." But then I saw that she could barely control her laughter, and knew that I was ok. Whew.

Ok, so I was a little mean, but that's what big brothers are for. One day, around the same time, I decided that for a whole day, I wasn't going to torture him once, and would look the other way no matter what he did to provoke it. No scaring him by sneaking around the corner and jumping out when he followed, no playing piano on his chest, and definitely no wonder punches, which is just another form of tickling, with a balled fist dug into his belly. Today was his day off.

I told him about my plan, and he was all for it. We watched a TV show together. He started poking at me, on my chest and stomach, and I was annoyed almost immediately, but I kept my cool and told him nicely to stop. Poke. I looked at him and he just smiled, but it was a sly smile.

"I'm not picking on you today John, but you need to leave me alone too."

Still the sly smile.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

"John, I'm warning you, you'd better stop."

Poke. Poke. Poke.

I looked at my shirt, which was a plain white T, and it was covered with bugars and snot.

And so ended our first and only day of peace.