Sibling Revelry

My son and daughter are best buddies.  Even though they are now separated by as much as 3000 miles, they remain thick as thieves, texting regularly in their own brand of kinder-speak—a form of communication that is meaningless and nonsensical to anyone who attempts to insert themselves between them.

There is a special brand of behavior adaptation that occurs among siblings.  It is a special case of natural rivals united against a common enemy—the parents.  To parents, children are often treated as a lump sum, as if their personalities, preferences, and proclivities are homogeneous.  They are left with the same babysitter, sent to the same school, left to play with the same toys, gathered up and taken to the same events.  Thus, siblings have a unique relationship, often developing a store of anecdotes and tall tales about each other that are best left forgotten.  What happens in the nursery should stay in the nursery.

But what if it doesn’t?  What if a special convergence of events brings these childhood scenes to life?

I spent the weekend with my nephew.  Now an MD, he has moved to the Boston area to train as a surgeon.  But you can’t hide from your DNA; my nephew has so many of his father’s mannerisms and gestures that it brought a rush of childhood memories to life.  That’s when I remembered how my brother and I used to play Star Trek, my brother’s operating a makeshift Lego control panel.  He would play Kirk and Spock and Bones and Scotty, relegating me to the unfortunate role of Lieutenant Uhura—the only “fitting” female role. 

Or, there was the time my one-year-older brother asked me, mockingly, “Don’t you wish you were five and I was four?”

So there I was, sitting with my nephew at dinner, teasing him over the NBA championships, his beloved Miami Heat’s having a tough time getting by my glorious Boston Celtics.  As we traded barbs and gently-veiled insults about our respective teams, I flashed to an invention of my brother’s—a hand gesture resembling the letter C.  It was his way of ending a back and forth exchange of insults, indicating that everything I said would travel down the inside of his fingers and change direction, picking up momentum as it slid down the thumb and hurled back at me.   It was a hand-formed half-pipe used to repel verbal assaults.  Of course, the formation can be copied easily.  As he used his cupped hand to throw my words back at me, I was free to do the same to him.  The result was an infinitely ricocheting loop of imaginary word-flinging.

Ah, but there had to be a victor; this reality caused this silly battle to evolve into much subtler machinations.  The “projector” would take pains to disguise his gesture, hoping the insult would be returned to the “receiver” without detection.  First, I would pretend disinterest, looking away and scratching my head until my brother lost focus.  Only then would I flick my “C hand” in his direction.  Not to be outdone, he would reach under the table and point his “C hand” at me.  I would then distract him with one hand to turn his gaze, only to broadside him with the other hand.  After a while, the hand gestures would simulate weapon combat—phasers shooting imaginary word spray at each other from every angle.  It was the ultimate in non-violent one-upmanship.

After telling my nephew about our childhood folly, he called his dad to remind him of this silly thing we did as kids.  There was a big laugh as my brother finally recalled the many permutations of this particular brand of warfare, and the many ways he tried to have the last laugh.  But the last laugh was mine; the last time I saw him I shot him the ol' C-hand on the way out the door!

Tomorrow's blog:  Breaking my own Rules