Tuesday, March 16, 2010

There Will Be Blood...



How's about a trip into my childhood? I wish I could say the names have been changed to protect the innocent, but I'm not sure who that would be. Well, besides me, of course.

I am the oldest of three siblings, and the only girl. That my friends, is a combination fraught with peril. But in this particular tale, I was sort of on the fringe of the action. This one involved my brothers, a metal toy rifle and a sleepless father.

My parents owned a restaurant, and my dad worked nights, so he was never in bed before 3 a.m. This left the morning routine to my mom. As a whole, my brothers and I were a rambunctious trio, and mornings were hectic, to say the least. My mom would wake at an insanely early hour in order to get herself ready before waking the beasts. Once awakened, my brothers would spend a good amount of time goofing around, fighting, playing with their toys, tattling and generally doing anything but getting ready for school. Most mornings at least one of us would go flying through our parents' bedroom door to holler at Mom, "J won't get out of the bathroom so I can brush my teeth!!" or "C is telling us what to do! Please tell her she's not our boss!!" or "N is making that face at me again! You know the one?! The one he makes just to tick me off?!?!" All the while, my father was in bed, trying to sleep. Invariably, he would end up pulling the pillow off his head and yelling, "GET OUT!!! GO GET READY FOR SCHOOL AND STAY OUT OF OUR ROOM!!!" So we would. For about ten minutes. Kids have notoriously bad short-term memories.

As most sibling issues do, this one eventually came to a head, and ended with a Sit-Down Talk About Staying Out of Dad's Room in the Morning. He informed us that we were not, under any circumstances, to enter their room in the morning. Period. And I quote, "I don't want ANYONE coming in this room in the morning unless someone is bleeding!! Do you understand me?!?!?" Three little heads nodded meekly, and the discussion ended. But here's the thing about kids. Setting parameters is the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull. It's a throwing down of the guantlet, if you will. Nine times out of ten, your kids are gonna pick up that gauntlet and slap you in the face with it. My father had made a request, and by golly, he was gonna get it.

The next morning was a Saturday. My brothers were playing on the living room floor and I was somewhere else in the house. Translation, no witnesses to the crime. Dad was sleeping, and I'm not quite sure where Mom was. All of a sudden, the calm and peaceful morning was shattered by a scream and the sound of thundering feet headed to my parents' room. Their bedroom door was flung open and my brother J was screaming, "HE HIT ME!!! I'M BLEEDING!! OH, HE HIT ME!!!" Listen, Dad had laid the ground rules, and my brother had stuck to them. Involuntarily, of course, but still. He had a gash above his eyebrow, and the blood was streaming down his face at a pretty good clip.

Not having witnessed how he came to be injured, I can only relay the facts as they've been given to me over the years. Here is the time line of the crime, as best as I can tell: My brothers were playing in the living room with their toy guns. Things were going fine, until my little brother N asked our brother J to cock the metal rifle. Never dreaming he was about to become an accomplice in his own assault, J quickly cocked the rifle and handed it back to N, who proceeded to crack J across the face with the barrel of the rifle. I am unclear as to why N chose to 'rifle'-whip his brother, but he did. And the result was a trip to the emergency room to get one of his many rounds of stitches.

Let this be a lesson to any parents who would be tempted to add the phrase "unless there's blood" to their rules. Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.

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