Family Stories #1

I like family stories. These are the stories everyone in the family knows and retells over the Thanksgiving table. These stories are part of the great oral tradition of telling stories that has been shared by every generation of man. They've been told so many times that their telling has become performance art. Everyone in the family has heard them, but they still like to hear the retelling. And every family has them.

When I was young, I shared my bedroom with my older brother, Kerry. Our oldest brother, Shawn, was lucky because he had his own room equipped with a sliding lock he installed himself. Shawn was a teenager, and you know how teenagers are – it was always best that when you heard Frampton Comes Alive from behind his door to just leave him alone.

The McClannahan boys with their mother

In the days before Kerry became a teenager, we were close. We had no choice. In our shared room, we had little privacy and at the time that wasn't a big deal. However, I am the youngest of three boys, and anyone with more than one of these creatures in their house knows that there will be roughhousing going on. From my perspective, a lot of times it felt like I was being picked on. I always came out on the short end of spit fights, I had more than my share of farts in my face and I can even recall one time when a good-sized rock found it's way from Kerry's hand to the top of my head. One of Kerry's favorite things to do was to let me enter a room first whereupon he would grab hold of the top of the door frame and lift himself up to give me a double-legged kick from behind.

Another favorite “game” was the dreaded titty-twister, known to many in these post-feminism days as a purple-nurple. If you are unfamiliar with this brand of torture, it is when someone grabs the loose fleshy part of your chest – usually somewhere in the vicinity of the nipple – and squeezes and twists as hard as they can. I didn't have much problem when I heard CIA operatives were waterboarding terrorist suspects. My attitude would have changed if I'd known the suspects were getting titty-twisters. My brothers especially liked this torture against me because I don't bruise – the pain would be intense but it would not leave a mark, otherwise known as evidence. They also were aware that I'm incapable of getting a bloody nose and used to to take great joy when a blow to my nose would make me sneeze.

Being the smallest, though, you learn other survival skills. To this day, I still have a relative high threshold for pain; except for ingrown toenails and throwing out a back, but those are adult problems. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I know the weak points on a male body. Some are obvious – a good swift kick to the balls will stop just about anyone. What many people don't know and I discovered is that a strategically placed thump with a middle finger on either the right or left gonad can be just as effective. I also know that if you grip someone by the hair on the back of their head and pull up, it will give you enough time to get loose from the grip of your older brother.

I'm sure my brothers have a different perspective on the regular tortures dished out upon me. To them, I was just a cry-baby. They were just goofing around, but there was usually a good reason I was crying.

With this in mind, Kerry and I found ourselves cleaning our room one day; which entailed picking up our junk and stuffing it into the closet. We had a set of bunk beds that could be used either separated or stacked. On this occasion, they were separated and I was searching under my bed for toys or whatever. There was only one thing I remember finding – the brass tip of a plastic toy dart. I turned to tell Kerry about this lost treasure, but found that he too was looking under a bed. He was vulnerable and I didn't get many chances at a vulnerable brother.

In review:

A butt belonging to someone who constantly harassed me was in front of me, and in my hand I had a sharp, pointy object.

The answer is yes, I did insert said dart tip into my brother's rump and he did react as you would imagine.

I don't remember if I got in trouble for my act, but if I did it was well worth it.

This story has become part of family legend. So much that my nieces like to hear it told. The story has been told in many different manners, but the lesson is the same every time – don't pick on your little brother.