Snowed in with Brother.

The BBQ Pit
1

What I wish I could tell my brother.:

Shit, fuck, Hell, damn, fart.

Boo-hoo-hoo. We’re snowed in. We can’t go to the Video Games Store. You’re bored stiff. You don’t want to play with any of the $2000s’ worth of equipment and games in you room, because you’ve played all of them fifteen times.

Well, shit. You should have thought of that last Christmas. Maybe if you had a little more variety in you gaming selection, you could find something to play. But no, you have at least 10 different basketball games, three for N64 alone. They’re all the fucking same! No, I don’t want to play with you. I hate sports games. We’ve lived in the same home for 14 years now, you know I hate sports games. My vision of Hell is being glued to the in-store demo of NBA Jam 2019.

And you’re getting a Playstation2 this year, to go with your Xbox, your playstation, your Gameboy Advanced, your N64, your SNES, your Sega Genesis, and your Gameboy. You’re also getting “WWE: Smackdown, Shut Your Mouth”. Wrestling.

I’m getting my wisdom teeth pulled.

Great, now you’re moping about how Mom doesn’t want to taxi your damn friends other. There’s a reason for that. We’re snowed in. Duh.

Oh, you’ve discovered that 2 hours of cajoling on the phone will persuade Bart’s grandparents to drive him over. The fart-headed friend of yours I most dislike. Joy. Bliss. Pure ecstacy.

Looks like we have tommorrow off, too. Then the weekend.

I’d be pulling my hair out in chunks, except that I’ve discovered that self-inflicted pain gets me nowhere, in addition to being painful.
(BTW, does anyone know of a good way to go about getting attention from parents who love your little brother more than you but won’t admit it? I’ve tried saying “Hey, I want attention.” That didn’t work. I’ve tried devoloping anti-social attitudes. Nada. I’ve tried jumping up and down, crying and shouting obscenities. That, at least, was recognized as a cry for attention. But it was then dismissed because I “only wanted attention”. Well, duh. I’d not have done it if I wanted to be ignored. Parents suck. [And no, I’m not suicidal, depressed, etc. Just jealous.])

Snow days suck. Little brothers suck.

2

You’re a teenager, right? And you WANT attention from your parents? Weird.

It gets worse. Wait till he gets taller than you.

3

And what do you have in your room?

4

He is taller than me. I’m the shortest person in my family.
I have a hand-me-down computer (no internet access), ~300 books, a TV under my computer desk, and a Gameboy Color. He has also oh-so-graciously permitted me the use of his Playstation.

5

Eugh. At least I had 18 years of superiority before my brother got taller than me.

6

BratBoy is finally catching some well-deserved flak. He did something stupid, which is par for the course, but this time it involved one of Mom’s prized possesions: her couch.

Now, she knew the neighborhood boys were pouring ice onto our ramp so that they could sled down it. She was annoyed, but said nothing because, well, they were almost done and it’s not the only way into the house.

But then, after the neighborhood boys had left, I found a couch cushion outside on the pool table. I brought it in and asked “What’s this doing outside?” I really had no clue. I though maybe they’d been using it as a snowball shield.
Nope. They’d been using it to sled down the ramp. Smart.
Mom’s threatening to make BratBoy pay for the drycleaning. Maybe he’ll learn that there are consequences to his actions.

7

Now he’s mad because I brought the cushion in. And he wants me off the internet.

I guess I’ll go do dishes.

8

Why do you have to do what he wants?

And you want attention from folks? Learn to play cards, or ask mom to teach you to cook.

Sometimes you have to pick up THEIR hobbies…

I used to play scrabble with my mom for hours, and cards… .cribbage, 200… those were the days.

9

I don’t have to do want he wants. I do have to listen to him whining about it, though.

And I do do stuff with the parents. I watch JunkYard Wars with Dad, Enterprise with Mom. Mom and I go shopping every weekend with Grandma.

Dad and I, we share hobbies, but they’re solitary hobbies. We play computer games, read, and watch televsion. When we do play a group game, we feel we must include BratBoy. Unfortunately, BratBoy doesn’t like the same games we do. The only game BratBoy and I will play together is Monopoly, and Dad hates Monopoly. He was all Monopolied out in High School. Dad taught me to play chess, but he doesn’t have time to play against me often, and so the only time I can play against a real-life human being is during Calculas at school.

Mom’s hobbies are talking to her Soapbox friends and shopping with Grandma. I obviously can’t participate on the Soapbox–Mom thinks I eavesdrop on her whenever I go there. Mom’s cooking mainly involves putting stuff in the oven and telling me “now don’t let that burn.” I do go shopping with her. That’s fun.

I think the main problem is that I feel Bratboy gets away with more things. Sure, he is younger than me, so I should know better. However, when he does the same things I did at his age, he doesn’t get the same amount of punishment. Plus, he has routinely breaks rules. He habitually hits me as he passes by. He says he doesn’t hit hard, but he’s a big kid. It hurts. He’s been told to stop, but he still does it. He never apoligizes nor does he seem to realize that I feel pain when he hits me.

BratBoy also gets more stuff than I do. All he has to do is whine for it long enough, and he’ll get it for Christmas. Whereas I don’t whine for stuff and I don’t get it. Strange how that works. But I can’t push myself to whine for things because, well, whining is annoying.
Oh, and about the cushion. No long-term effects. Mom even offered to drive BratBoy over to Bart’s house today. Across town. In the snow (Although it has cleared up a bit).

10

The second child always gets away with more then the first and so on down the line.

When I was 16 I would have been grounded had I been home 5 minutes after curfew. My brother (5th child) at 16 can pretty much disappear all night with nothing more then a “where did you go again?” posed to him.

Parents get more and more relaxed (tired?) with their children.

Plus, it sounds like you are a good kid. It is easy to yell at a good kid when they mess up every once in a great while. It sounds like your brother is a bit of a handful. They probably don’t want to spend all day yelling so they just ignore some of his stuff. Doesn’t seem fair I know. Hang in there.