Sunday, November 18, 2007

Teasers

I grew up the 5th of 6 children. I'm sandwiched in between 3 boys, and my sisters were married by the time I was about 10. Being raised with brothers is a much different experience for girls than being raised with sisters. One of the hardest parts of being raised with boys is the teasing. I have to admit, that having a younger brother, I did my share of teasing too, but I still feel justified in proclaiming these injustices to the world. :0) Here are some things I remember:

--I had two large teddy bears that I slept with to "keep me safe" each night. My brothers would take these and threaten to flush them down the toilet. They would drag me in to the bathroom and make me watch as they held my teddy bears suspended over the toilet. Now, we all knew the teddy bears wouldn't fit, but the very thought of it even touching the water sent me in to screams of terror.....screams which delighted my brothers.

--One night my parents went bowling and left my older brothers to babysit me. They had a couple of friends staying over for the evening too. (I know, what were my parents thinking?). These four boys made a dummy and suspended it by it's neck outside my bedroom window. Then they took some old boots and clomped them on the roof above my room. They also started scratching at my window screen. I knew it was them, logic told me so, but still the sound of the screen being scratched was scary. I refused to look out my window for the source of the sound, so my brothers were disappointed. So my second brother "Sticks" came in to my room and tried to get me to look out my curtains. I refused, so he pulled the curtains open (to reveal the dummy hanging there). I closed my eyes and refused to look, so he began to try to pry my eyelids open. This went on for some time, and I can't remember if I ended up looking or not. I must have looked, because I remember the dummy.

--My brother Twist had a more subtle way of teasing me. He would quietly point a finger at me and laugh a sneering laugh. I could never quite copy that laugh, but it infuriated me. lol He did this often, mainly to get a reaction.

--I have memories of being teased as young as 3 and 4 years old. One vivid memory was of being in our kitchen and my brothers telling me there was a mouse in the kitchen. What they didn't count on was that I immediately jumped up and clung on to their legs with my legs wrapped tightly around so the mouse wouldn't get me. I remember it being difficult for them to extricate me from the tangle of legs.

--The only time I ever found a weapon to fight back was when I was also quite young. My brothers were incessantly teasing me, so I threatened to kiss them. I quickly learned that if I ever wanted them to scatter, a kiss would do the trick.

--I have to admit that my brothers were teased too. One day we were teasing Sticks I can't remember what he did to deserve it, but all 5 of us dragged him in to the bathroom and suspended him head first over a toilet that hadn't been flushed. (yes, it was very gross) We were just teasing, just wanted to get a reaction. But then for some unexplained reason, my sister Nene pushed, and Sticks went head first in to the gross toilet. I claim all innocence in this, so you will have to ask Nene about the guilt. :0P

--One thing that I can accept guilt for was teasing my younger brother J. He was young and still at that age that has no modesty. He was taking a bath, but kept running through the house to go get toys from his room so that he could play with them in the bathtub. I told him that if he came through naked one more time I was going to take a picture of him. He came again, with a towel around him, but my brother Sticks and I couldn't resist and dragged him outside in the back yard and took a picture of his naked back side. I know...I should feel very guilty. Not quite sure what happened to that pic, and I'm not quite sure why CPS didn't knock on our door after having it developed.

Well, now you know why I'm a neurotic adult. The teasing did it to me, especially from my brothers. Blame them. :0P

2 comments:

Nene said...

I do remember pushing his head, but I think we had already pushed the lever on the toliet to flush it so the contents were already on their way down. He has never forgiven me. However, I feel no guilt because he has gotten so much milage from it. :0)

Nene said...

Oh, and the reason we were holding his head over the toliet is because he was obsessed with teasing you by holding your teddy bear over the toliet, so we were showing him how it felt to be teased. :0)