Looking Back...

My brother Doug is ten years older than I am. That means that he was 15/16 when my sister and I were four and six--when the problems started. We used to cry when Mom and Dad would leave, "Please please don't leave us with him!" Why did we dread him babysitting so much? Mostly because he made us clean our room while he watched tv. Very unfair. I remember that we made up a game called "Counting Cars" in which we would sit in front of the window and keep track of all the cars that went by until our parents came home. Rather pathetic actually. In retrospect, we probably annoyed the crap out of him. Actually, I have pretty solid evidence of this. Whenever we had a formal dinner for a birthday party or holiday--basically whenever we had guests and ate in the dining room--I would make placecards for where everyone was supposed to sit. Now, for some reason I thought that the funniest possible joke in the world was to write "Dog" instead of "Doug" and pretend it was a mistake--every time. The thing is, I remember doing this one time and having to look up how to spell dog. I also remember lots of weekends where Doug tried to sleep in while we endeavored to make that impossible. We practically begged for the opportunity to wake him up if Mom or Dad needed him for something. It was delightfully terrifying to sneak in and jump on the beast in the bed--you had to be quick--maximum annoyance in minimum time. You couldn't give him enough time to yell or retaliate--he was twice our size after all.

He likes us now, mostly.