In Which I (Tyler) Rant:

Little Brothers Are Gifts From God. You have no idea how many times I hear people tell me that, and I must say that I agree. Little brothers are an extremely thoughtful gift from the Lord. They are proof that God loves us, and wants us to stay humble, alert, paranoid and irritable.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, my younger brother somehow sprains his ankle while playing in the back yard. I cannot for sure say whether or not this is actually true, firstly because I wasn't there, secondly because I have no medical aptitude to tell such things. Validity, notwithstanding, we patch him up, put an ace bandage on it and everything, and everything's fine. Or so it would seem... Not two hours later (an hour after bedtime, mind you, due to extremely fortuitous feats of timing), said little brothers comes into the living room with a roll of gauze, describing vividly to us the discomfort it's causing him that his "feet don't match," and that we should wrap the other one. My parents rebutted this plea (and I must be careful here, because they read this occasionally) with a simple, "I'm sorry, deary, but I'm afraid afterwards you won't be able to walk." Which was replied to with, "Oh yeeeeeaaah..."

And if you mind, allow me to digress for a moment (incidentally, if you're reading this and do mind if I digress, you're reading the entirely wrong blog), the combinations of the words "Oh," and "yeah," coming from an eight year old mouth is, to parents, the deadliest utterance known to man. If executed properly, it instantly erases all memory of innocent mistake or wrongdoing, replaced solely by the sensation of utter cuteness in the child. And furthermore, the primal urge to give said child anything his little heart desires. Such as: A drink (Which takes forty-two minutes to substantially "sip"), a story (Which takes anywhere from fifteen to fifty-four minutes depending on how many times the parent falls for "read it again, mommy!"), a hug (which turns into a cuddle, which turns into watching television/listening to the radio/reading a book depending on the parent's activity, a good forty minutes in and of itself) or, as my brother so eloquently introduced, medical attention (a swift thirty-six minutes).

The purpose of that digression in fact leads to the summary of the current digression: Little kids (particularly brothers and particularly mine) get away with anything in the name of attention. Particularly getting out of bedtime, so said sibling may watch TV, etc., and therefore stay up substantially later than a little body should, and therefore wake up substantially later as well, causing everyone else to be late, miserable, grumpy, and completely prepared for it happening again that night.

May I also add that younger brothers are masters of the art of fooling everyone but the people they don't have to listen to.

So next time someone tells you that a little brother is a gift from God, laugh in their face and run into the setting sun, because you have to babysit.


On a side note, just listened to "Clint Eastwood" by The Gorillaz again. Turns out it's not actually about Clint Eastwood. Go figure.


-Space