Reality Check

Dear Friends,

Perhaps my journals give you the impression that we are the ideal family, so today, I thought I would bring us all back to reality. I just refereed the third fight of the day, and the commandeering of such feats is not easy from the front seat. The teasing and taunting, the touching and tormenting, the tantalizing and torturing that is the rite of passage for brothers is maddening. Do sisters fight like this?

“Bennie said…! Bennie is touching me! Bennie is giving me the thumbs down sign! Bennie is laughing at me and sticking his tongue out at me! Bennie says he is going to fart on my pillow! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie.”

I think that an aneurysm is going to burst in my head. I begin my diatribe. “Bennie, you are 11. You know better. Can’t you stop, Bennie? Why most you continue the fight, Bennie?”

“Ethan James! Please stop yelling, it startles your father while he drives. Ethan please stop whining. Would you like to watch a movie or play a game? Please stop jinxing your brother and teasing him about Kayla.”

I sound like my mother.

Suddenly, I am transported to 1977 on the Schuylkill Expressway. I am in the backseat with my brother who is lying on the shelf with the speakers in the back of our Pontiac. Remember the shelf? As my father curses the Schuylkill Expressway traffic, my brother agitates and aggravates me until I think my mother’s head will explode.

At least I don’t threaten to leave them on the side of the road in the middle of the Big Horn Mountains and Forrest in Wyoming. At least not yet. I can hear my father in my head, “If I have to come back there, someone in this car is going to be very sorry! I can promise you that. Everyone is going to be crying and then we are turning around and going home.” We believed him. We were only near Philadelphia. My kids are wiser. We are over 2000 miles from home. They know we will never deliver on that threat.

Again, as I write, I hear, “Stop it Ethan!”

Ben’s eyes roll so far back in his head he can see the part of his brain that does long division. “Please stop them, honey. Please do something.”