When Siblings Attack

I was talking to one of my nephews a couple of weeks ago when he reminded me of one time when I was babysitting him and his younger brother. I had a pet tarantula at the time (don't even ask), and he wanted me to take it out of its cage so he could see it, even though it frightened him. Well, I was terrified of that stupid tarantula, so I cooked up a scheme. I told him that the tarantula didn't like to be picked up if other people were in the room, so if he would go wait in the bedroom closet (!) I would take out the tarantula and bring it to him. While he was in the closet, I grabbed a hank of brown yarn, kind of fluffed it up, then opened the closet door and thrust the yarn into his face. I will never forget his look of sheer terror, right before he burst into tears and collapsed. Ah, memories! I am in my forties, he is in his thirties, and we both vividly remember that one.

I was a terrible kid. Another time, I hid my sister Ditzy's glasses the night of her junior prom. She was resigned to going to her prom in her old glasses, which literally had a big piece of adhesive tape on the nosepiece holding them together, when I miraculously "found" her other pair of glasses. Nobody was fooled by that one.

Of course, I do come by my childhood torture techniques honestly. Here are two of the things my older sisters did to me when our parents weren't around:

1. Telling me the berries on the bushes in the front yard were poison, then grabbing a handful and stuffing them in my mouth, holding my mouth shut and forcing my jaw up and down to make me chew.

2. Picking me up, holding me over the kitchen sink, turning on the water, turning on the garbage disposal, and then telling me they were going to feed me in, feet first, while I screamed and begged for mercy and tried desperately to squirm out of their arms.

Good times!