Since there is no prohibition against it in the canon law of the All John All The Time World Church (would you use a canon law to shoot a lawyer?), I have siblings.
And as far as I know, there's no known cure. Other than being born an only child.
Having siblings, I suspect, isn't as bad as having, say, herpes Simplex MLXRY2K, but it may be close. The biggest similarity is probably the inability to treat either one effectively with any drugs known currently.
I have an older brother and an older sister; my brother is twelve years older, my sister is eight years older and I was a mistake. I once, in a kidding manner, made a reference to being "an accident" to my mother, and her response was quick and to the point. "No you weren't." (The comma and the word "asshole" after the word "wrong" in the previous sentence are implied.) My mother is a woman of few words. I laughed and slunk off into the kitchen to get another of the Captain's Spiced Rum and Cola.
Since both of my siblings were of such a greater age than I, both of them were pretty much gone and out of the house by the time I came along, (my brother off to boarding school when I was about three and my sister to an apartment with a friend when I was about eight) so a lot of what I remember as a kid was being raised by myself, like an only child. No complaint or criticism intended, just telling the story. So I never really got to know either of them as children, but only later in life as adults. So I never REALLY got to know just how weird they can be. Not serious, alien abduction weird, but they do have their eccentric moments.
I moved to CA back in 2000, after almost fifty years in Chicago, a great town, a marvelous town, except in the winter. If you haven't been to Chicago in winter, or are from some wonderful, sunshiny place like Tahiti where they don't have winters, then let me help you: imagine being rolled from a warm bed, dead asleep, right into a bathtub of cold water and ice cubes. Welcome to every morning in the winter in ChiTown.
I stayed with my big sister, who also lives in LA (pronounced LAH), for the first couple of months I was out here, while I looked for employment and shelter. I came out in early autumn, with winter (Southern California-style winter) approaching.
So one frosty December morning, after the thermometer had dropped overnight into the low 40's, (40's in Chicago in December and you're outside in shorts and a teeshirt) I'm in the kitchen of my sister's apartment, reading the paper, when out walks my big sister, (whose name, by the way, is Mary Ann, and whom I refer to as L'il Mare, or, affectionately, Small Female Horse), dressed to brave the cruel elephants, er, elements of the Southern California winterscape. Keeping in mind that, less than a year previously, I had lived in the frozen tundra of Illinois, I took one look at my sister and burst out laughing.
For the Arctic temperature outside of, probably, forty-two at the worst, my sister was clad in a big, wooly knit hat, a scarf wound around her neck, covering all the way up to her ears, one of those huge, tubey-looking down-filled coats that make you look like the Michelin Tire guy, mittens the size of catcher's mitts, clipped to her sleeves, I might add, and knee-high, fur-lined mucklucks.
I can only assume that her sleigh and eight tiny snowdeer were parked outside.
My brother, whom my sister and I refer to, behind his back of course, as P.A., which stands for Pompous Ass, chases trains. Not like one of those dogs you occasionally see on AFV, you know, the ones that chase the model train around a four-foot track on the floor in an endless circle of dizziness, no, real trains. Big trains. BIG trains. BIG TRAINS.
I remember the first time my brother mentioned his hobby to me (we were on the phone at the time) ..."you chase what?...trains...not model trains?...trains...hey, Bill, (his name's Naferatidi), how big of a net do you use?...come on, it was a little funny...so what do you do with one when you catch it?...hello...I guess we got disconnected..."
When my brother was in college, back in the OLD days (like Prehistoric U days), he put himself through school working nights as a yard-master for the Rock Island RR in Chicago, and became fascinated by trains. So several times a year, my brother and some of his fellow inmates, er, train enthusiasts take a week's vacation, travel to some major rail center like Chicago or Los Angeles, and spend several days...chasing trains. I'd tell you more, but I'm pretty sure that's the whole gig.
As a hobby, it would seem to rank right up there with stamp-collecting and June bug lassoing.
Not certifiable; just weird.
Now, please let me reassure you, that neither my brother nor my sister are in anyway involved or connected with the AJATTWC, in any manner. Oh, I'd hire them (hey, I'm the Pope, I'm entitled to exercise a little nepotism), but they won't work for me.
They think I'M weird, for some reason, and for the life of me, I do not understand why. Maybe it had something to do with me telling them about the time I was abducted by aliens from the Inner Ice Ring of Mutorcs, and how they took me back to their planet, Noloc, and performed experiments on me of a, well, let me put this as delicately as I can, sexual nature, then returned me to Earth in capsule moving at the Speed of Aroma, where they continue to monitor me with sensing devices that they surgically inplanted in my...well, never mind that now.
Nah.
Love and rivalries,
PJTT
copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.
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