I grew up with a lot of siblings. There were five of us and my dad was usually at work which made it 5 vs 1 most of the time. As you can imagine, the sheer numbers made it impossible for our mom to effectively supervise us, and I was taught early by my older siblings how to take advantage of this blind spot.
We fought, we snuck sweets, we did everything a kid could dream of in those moments we knew Mom wasn’t watching, but our favorite thing to do was trick our siblings. Our pranks were far beyond average but generally lacked a physical component: we made a sport of manipulating each other’s psyches, like if we were competing in a Tour de France of the ‘gullible is written on the ceiling’ joke, we’d make it look like Lance Armstrong was just on aspirin.
The oldest, Camille, was particularly skillful. I believed Calvin Coolidge was the face on the dime until I was a junior in high school. She once convinced my brother ‘the Citizen Kane’ was the eighth Harry Potter movie and he watched it from start to finish with her, fully convinced.
She was legendary. She was my idol.
I wasn’t a particularly big player initially. I was the fourth out of five, my older siblings had more experience, they had been around the block before meanwhile I didn’t even know how to multiply. Education matters, folks, and I was determined to teach them that I was ready for the big leagues.
And I set my sights on the youngest, Jean.
A momma’s boy, good with numbers. He even skipped a grade, a sure sign of his worthiness in being my opponent in this game of wits. And best of all, his birthday was coming up.
I woke up early that November day, I imagine by sheer willpower and the grace of god because I definitely did not have an alarm clock. It was a good omen, I was meant to do this.
I sauntered into Jean’s room ready to spring my trap and asked a casual question.
“What color do you stop at on the stoplight?”
He answered confidently, assured of himself. He pointed to his scarlet gingham bedspread and announced “red”. Truly a worthy opponent but I had expected as much- I had prepared for this, and it was time for my master stroke.
I chuckled, quietly and coolly, looking down on him, slightly shaking my head. I knew I had to play this slick, I couldn’t force it. So I walked away, but the seed of doubt was there. I had him.
I went to play with my toys knowing Jean would come to me. He couldn’t risk being embarrassed in front of his treasured mother and the other siblings were less approachable. I had calculated it all, and even planted red and green blocks inconspicuously nearby, waiting for my moment. And it came.
“Uh, Shea? What color do you stop at?”
I clucked motherly and gestured for Jean to join me on the floor; he was completely in my power. I glanced around the room, taking my sweet time to come to the green block. When I finally did, I picked it up, smiled like a benevolent-angel-sister, and showing him that block I said “you stop at red, Jean. Happy Birthday.”
We spent a few more minutes making sure he understood the basics, that grass was red and stop signs were green, before it was time to run errands with mom. Dad was home to watch the other kids, but Jean had to go to the grocery to pick out his cake and I asked if I could come along too.
I successfully distracted him from the three stoplights in between us and the grocery store, carefully monitoring our environment to make sure nothing ruined my prank. We were cruising through the store aisles when Jean pulled something I didn’t expect.
“I want a red cake!”
It seemed like an innocent request. Mom pulled a box of red velvet mix from the shelf, cursorily showing it to him before tossing it in the basket.
“No, red!”
Mom looked at Jean, bewildered, but assumed it was just the fickleness of a six-year-old boy. She put the box back on the shelf and started pulling other red velvet mixes, strawberry mixes, anything she could find, but he got angrier and angrier with each cake she showed him.
And then, the maelstrom.
We didn’t have cake that year, but my victory was sweeter. Not only did I outprank my siblings, I defeated the ultimate: my mother. She thought Jean was colorblind for years, kept getting him tested but still couldn’t figure out what was going on. I won.
I felt a little bad for my victim, the innocent little Jean. But he got a scooter for his birthday and forgot he had ever cried in his life.
Don’t worry, the scooter was blue.
Comments