Reversion to…er, Childhood

The man is ready to pounce! Let's hope I survive his wrath when he sees that I put this photo on the internet.

I N THE PAST WEEK, I have pinched my brother T, wrestled him to the ground, pulled his hair, given him a “wet-willy,” and told him that he will never have a girlfriend again. (I’m coming clean because TSP is the place to do so.) I won’t even begin the laundry list of his offenses against me, but I’m sure you get the picture. Since my father, T’s former roommate, joined the Peace Corps last fall, at the sprightly young age of 61, T has been spending an increasing amount of time here at my mother’s house (the house where we grew up).

He hasn’t brought any of his clothes over from Dad’s house, so every morning he wears this 49ers sweatshirt (I’m pretty sure it was a gift he received in 1993) along with a pair of long johns that belonged to my Dad in the days of yore. I don’t know if it’s the outfit, or the fact that we are surrounded by all our old weapons, or that we cannot help acting like we have ADD around our mother, but daily events in 2009 have strangely resembled daily events in 1992. It’s been feeling like the Twilight Zone at our house.

After taking this photo, my mind wandered to various afternoons spent climbing on top of T while he played dead on the living-room floor. We came up with a wrestling league before I was even in school, now the name of it escapes me. We were the only members, of course. T chose his wrestling character to be named “Tree Top,” which you won’t think is wimpy at all when I tell you that my chosen wrestling name as a runty little girl was “Curtain Snip.” I can still hear him announcing with our fists in the air, “Tree Top vs. Curtain Snip! Wrestling match of the century!” These days, he doesn’t let me win.

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