I have a lot of siblings. Five in total, but one of them, my smart-as-a-whip sister Gabby didn’t join our family until much later, so my mom only had to deal with four of them and me as we grew up, which, looking back, still may have been a few too many.
I definitely must have made it harder considering my propensity towards only wearing either velvet leotards or overalls sans shirt as I wreaked havoc on our home and the surrounding neighborhood. I would only indicate I was finished with my dinner by throwing the remnants of my food (bowl included) onto the ground and then climbing up on top of my tray table to dance. Apparently, my balance was impeccable as a child- who knows what happened to it since. I would have to say the worst thing I did as a kid was flood the first floor of our house. I stuck a cup in the water dispenser, took a nap, and when I woke up there was a pool of water covering the entirety of the first floor. I think we had to move out for a while, but I didn’t really care- I was four years old.
That sounds ‘pretty bad’, I think, at least, people are always shocked when I mention it, but I think my younger brother may have one upped me in hilarious childhood antics, so I’ll be borrowing his story for today. I described my one flood, but the home of our childhood experienced another flood with a far more entertaining origin than a slow shower of water from a fridge dispenser.
Speaking of showers, my little brother Jean detested them. Bath time seemed to be a device of mental and physical torture concocted solely to make the little cherubic boy suffer. t’Jacques and I probably had similar opinions but were more resigned to our fates than Jean- Jean was a fighter. He was usually bathed first, to get the worst over with, before it was our turn. It seemed easier then; Jacqueline could never have predicted what was about to occur. She had finished bathing Jean and set him loose to wear off some of his energy before bedtime. That was her first mistake.
t’Jacques and I took our baths calmly and mom tucked us in immediately after drying us off and making sure we brushed our teeth and put on our PJ’s. I was sitting on the foot of t’Jacques’ bed as mom read the two of us a story, or at least she tried to. We were halfway through ‘The Little Engine That Could” when we heard an ominously gleeful call from downstairs accompanied with unabashed laughter.
“I’m allllllllllllll cleaaaaaannnnn Mommmmmmmyyyyyy! I’m alllll cleaaan!’ my little brother bellowed, waiting for Jacqueline to come and see what he had done. Naturally I was curious too, and I followed at her legs to the top of the staircase to see Jean, completely naked and slathered from head to toe in butter.
I have to hand it to him, the butter was a strategic move. He was almost impossible to catch, having greased himself in the softened butter still on the table from dinner. Mom chased him and chased him constantly coming close to catching him but he slipped right out of her grasp every time, laughing maniacally, naked as the day he was born, like a little wingless cherub ready for the frying pan. He finally tired out, but by that point, mom was done too. She told him very sternly to clean himself up ‘or else’, and as a child there is no phrase more foreboding. Unfortunately, that was her second mistake.
Jean, worn out from all his running, diligently wiped the butter of his body with toilet paper he moistened in the sink of the guest bathroom, but when he had finished, Jean didn’t turn the sink all the way off, and had left a glob of butter and toilet paper clogging the sink’s drain. He passed mom’s inspection and she tucked him into his bed- all was forgiven. But the next morning would show it wasn’t over yet.
Jean didn’t leave the sink on all the way, in fact he probably thought it was off. That didn’t stop the slow trickle of water from seeping into the floor that night, flooding the bottom of the adjacent study until the floor boards warped and popped up off the ground. It took ages to fix so in my young mind it was there forever, practically a monument to the Great Butter Run of 2005.
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