Once upon a
time, hour after hour day after day I would wish I were the only child; and
even if not the only one. I wished my parents had stopped at me. I would ask my
mom why she wasn’t happy with just my elder brother and me, why she needed to
get three more. “They are just so annoying” I would always say.
I can’t
remember when last my brother and I laughed over the same issue. I’m not even
sure it ever happened. Right from my birth, only one of the two of us was entitled
to the first and last laugh. He was either laughing and I was crying or I was
the one laughing and he was crying which I can tell you didn’t happen very
often. However, sitting now and talking about the things we did when we were
younger was definitely worth both our laughter. He was two years older than me
(he still is) but I always wanted to do what he was doing which annoyed him
more than anything. We argued over anything and everything. For two good years,
I was the cat and he was the dog and I was just okay with that until another
dog came along. My struggle hadn’t even begun until the third boy came. At this
point, my misery was at its peak. They became a group. They did everything
together leaving me to wallow in my loneliness and gloom.
“Boy to
boy--girl to girl.” This was the rule they lived by. This was what they said to
me anytime I wanted to play with them. They interpreted this to mean whenever a
boy owns something, only boys will partake from it and whenever a girl owns
something, only girls will partake from it. They were very aware that I was the
only girl and so they made this up to keep me from doing anything with them. It
was at this period I became “Daddy’s girl.” I never had anything to do or play
with so I always stayed with my dad. He was the one who I played with. Day and
night, my brothers teased me with this. It was never so horrible when one
person said it, but when the three of them came together to mock me, then it
was like hell.
The only
thing that kept me strong was the fact that I knew their weakness. I had always
been the talkative. I could ask for anything through any means and I didn’t take
no for an answer. This was my strong point. They couldn’t ask dad for anything
because they were always afraid he would say no so it wasn’t until they began
to see that anything I asked for, dad gave me without hesitation that they
began to think twice before doing things. Ha-ha! This was the best part of my
childhood. They actually calmed down. They would reluctantly beg me when I had
stuff saying things like “Don’t you know you are the best sister any boy can
ever ask for?” or “I can never ask for any other sister other than you.” Sometimes,
if I make them beg me for a long period of time, when I finally give in and
give them what they want, they would get mad and change to their normal selves
where they would then say things like “With her mighty head! Who is begging
you?” or “I’m not saying any thank you! Go and tell the world!”
(To be
continued)
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