My brother and I were hellions in a number of ways growing up – none more-so than when our parents had to go out and leave us with a babysitter. We went through a cadre of babysitters, a number of whom ended up in tears at some point in our time together. We had a knack for torture, and most of them never told on us. I don’t know why. Suzie’s older brothers each babysat just once. Tim was terrified of our German shepherd Crystal, so our parents warned us not to let the dog in while he was in charge. We gave Tim about three minutes before we let the dog in; he promptly ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Eventually, we put the dog in the garage and Tim came back out. Eventually.
Andy was not afraid of the dog, so we had to find another trick for him. He arrived with a copy of ‘The Little Prince’ which he read to us (at least, a bit of it). We recognized the book because we had a copy of it too. We brought out our version and compared them. They were identical but for a black star on the back of his. Of course, we wanted his version, the one with the black star, and we begged him to trade us. He was not having it, so we gave up and waited.
Whether it was a bathroom stop or dinner preparation, at one point he left the room and it was then that we pounced. With a black marker, I drew a wobbly star on our copy of the book, then put his copy back in our library. We said nothing, assuming we would get caught before he left for the night, but he never noticed, and as he left with our copy we thrilled at the trick we had played on him. Hopefully it wasn’t a library book…
Aside from the book, Andy escaped relatively unscathed. A switched-out book was nothing compared to the horror/obstacle course we set up for a neighbor in our basement, or the vaguely suicidal gesture I made using a few allergy pills. It was a more innocent time then.
I won’t get into the grief we gave family members who ended up watching over us, especially Uncle Roberto who put up with more bullshit than anyone other than our parents. As an Uncle myself, I feel that the twins are as much karma for my bad behavior as they are for their father. Neither of us is ready for what is about to come.
Back to Blog
