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Date Posted: 08:45:11 11/30/02 Sat
Author: Wanda
Author Host/IP: 204-181-87-57.cis.net / 204.181.87.57
Subject: The Life of a Cad

The Life of a Cad

It certainly was not easy growing up with a brother who was good looking, smooth talking, and much too mentally alert. He was infamous at getting away with far more then any child should. The other thing that just irritated me to no end was the fact he could always make me look like the guilty one. It wasn’t anything he would say though. When he was confronted with something that had been broken or had disappeared, he would flash that golden smile, roll those devilish eyes, and my parents would buy it every time. Then that rascal would give me one of those looks that said, “You know you are going to get caught.” Wouldn’t you know it, my parents were convinced I had committed the deed. I tell you there were times I would lay awake at night dreaming up ways to bring about my brother’s demise.

I can remember one Saturday when I was ten and my brother, Jake, was twelve. Our parents had decided they would drive ten miles to the little town of Culver City to see my father’s mother. Granny Poo was getting up in age, and they felt it was necessary to go over, and make sure everything was all right with her. Even though Granny Poo was eighty-one years old, she was spry as a “spring chicken.” That’s the comment Granny Poo made about herself. I never knew what she meant by that statement, and I was afraid I would make her think I was a total “nothing” if I asked her what it meant.

When I looked at Granny Poo, she seemed pretty old to me. She always wore her hair twisted up in a bun on the top of her head. Her hair was white, and she had a consistent twinkle in her eye. She was a tiny little thing, probably weighed no more then ninety-five pounds dripping wet. She had piercing blue eyes that could look through to your thoughts, and she was very liberal at giving you her opinion.

After Dad and Mother backed out the driveway; and headed down the street, my brother Jake said, “Let’s have a party.” Oh yeah, Mr. Party Animal, that was Jake. I was always the one who said, “Jake, you know you are going to get us in trouble again.” What was I saying? I would be the one who would get into trouble. He would schmooze his way out of it, and I would be left holding the preverbial bag.

I tried to talk him out of the party, but “NO,” he was not going to listen to his little sister. He patted me on the head; the cad loved looking down at me, and patting me on my head. “Ahhhhhhh, come on Janet, don’t be so tightly wrapped,” he said. “Take a chill pill.” Just once I wished he would talk like a normal person. If I had known what a chill pill was, and happened to have one on hand, I would have done my best to see that he ingested it. Maybe it would slow him down to the speed of a normal twelve-year old boy.

Jake picked up the phone and called his best friend, John Henry Higgins. I groaned inwardly when I heard Jake say, “John Henry, what’s up, man? How’d you like to come over and party with me?” Then I heard him say, “Yeah, Janet is here. She

I knew, for sure, trouble was on the way. When John Henry and my brother, Jake, got together trouble was never far away. I might as well go to my room, sit down, and try to figure out how to stay out of this whole thing. I thought it was about time for the chips to fall where they may, and watch that brother of mine take the fall. Whatever happened, I was not going to get involved; that one thing I knew for certain.

Ten minutes later John Henry rang the front doorbell. I could hear Jake going to the door, and inviting him into the house. I had already barricaded my door. Those two jerks were not about to get me involved in their partying.

John Henry had brought over some CD’s, and I could hear the music being turned up to an ear piercing volume. The phone was ringing, and Jake was not bothering to answer the phone. I doubted he could hear it with all the loud music. I knew I wasn’t about to come out of my room to answer it, so it just kept ringing. It wasn’t long before I could smell pizza, so Jake had probably put in a frozen pizza to bake. I had visions of the mess in Mom’s oven as the smell of burnt pizza began to drift through the house.

I could hear a bouncing noise, and I wondered if Jake and John Henry were bouncing a basketball off the walls in the living room. Surely, that crazy brother would know better then that. I thought about the set of Rockwell collector’s plates hanging on the wall of the dining room just off the living room. I knew those plates were my Mother’s pride and joy, and heaven help the one who did something to damage them.

The phone was ringing again, but of course; Jake was too busy with his music and basketball bouncing to hear it. It rang for a period of time, and then it stopped once again. I wondered if it were some of Jake’s friends for he was always getting calls at home. It was so annoying. Why did he have to be so popular anyway?

The smell of burnt pizza was becoming more prevalent all the time. Couldn’t those two smell burnt pizza? About that time, the smoke alarm went off, and smoke was pouring through the house. Jake was at my door screaming for me to get out of the house; there was smoke everywhere. I yelled back at him and asked, “Jake, did you take the pizza out of the oven?” He had forgotten the pizza, and by the time he did get to the oven, the pizza was burnt to a crisp. I will give him this; he opened the windows to help rid the house of the smoke.

Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Richey, saw all the smoke; and promptly tried to call us. Of course we were not aware of that because Jake never answered the telephone when she called. When the phone was not answered, she called the Fire Department and reported there was smoke coming from the windows of their neighbors’ house. Soon the Fire Department showed up. We could actually hear their sirens over the loud music that was playing. When I saw them pull up in front of the house, I smiled to myself, and thought, “Let’s see Jake explain this one to our parents.”

I looked out my bedroom window and could see firemen running toward our house. They started hammering on the door. Jake did hear that, and went to open the door. The one fireman said they had received a call from Mrs. Richey saying that smoke was coming from our house. Jake tried to explain, but the fireman wanted to come inside, and check for himself. He went out to the kitchen, and looked at the charred remains of the pizza Jake had tried to bake, then asked about our parents. Jake told him they had gone to visit our grandmother, and would be back within an hour or two.

The policemen looked at Jake and said, “Look young fella, if I were you, I would get busy here. I have no doubt your mother is not going to be too happy to see this kitchen with the smoke all over everything.” When the fire department pulled away, I was smiling from ear to ear. Jake came to my door, and began begging me to come out; and help him clean up the mess.

To make matters even more interesting, John Henry was still bouncing the basketball off the wall. You can surely guess what happened next. He hit the plate rack that held Mom’s collector plates. He must have hit it pretty hard for the rack came apart, and all the plates fell to the hardwood floor below. I could hear breaking glass and a loud moan from Jake. About that time, John Henry decided it was time for him to leave for home. He made up some lame excuse about needing to help his dad wash his car. Yeah, right!

By the time John Henry had jumped on his bicycle, and headed down the driveway, Jake was moaning like he was about to die. Thankfully, John Henry had taken the CD’s back with him. Jake came back to my bedroom door; and said, “Janet, please come out, and help me. Mom is going to kill me when she sees this place. That jerk, John Henry, broke all her Rockwell plates. What am I going to do?”

You know I was really sweet about the whole thing. I said through the door, “Jake, you knucklehead, didn’t I beg you not to have a party? Why don’t you ever listen to what I have to say?” He was apologizing and pleading with me to come out, and help him clean up the mess. I thought, “I’ll let him suffer for a little while longer; he deserves this for all the times he has gotten me in trouble.”

Good grief, he was actually crying. I couldn’t believe it; I was even feeling sorry for him. Finally, I came out, and took a look around the house. How could two boys
Create such a wretched mess? I said, “O.K. so you want my help, then you won’t mind a little negotiating, do you?” He looked at me, tears gone now, and suspicion on his face. “What is it that you want?” he asked. “Here’s the deal,” said I. “You are going to take your own punishment, and stop pushing your messes off on me. I have waited a long time for this, and I promise you, you are not going to get by with this any longer. I have been sitting in my room thinking up the story to tell Mom and Dad; would you care to hear it?”

I could tell he was furious, but he was smart enough to recognize he was between a rock and a hard spot. “All right, Janet, you win,” he sighed. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up.”

An hour later, give or take a few minutes, our parents pulled into the driveway. Jake and I had done what I would consider a pretty good job of clearing away the mess. The burnt pizza was out of sight. We had cleaned the oven, swept up all the broken plates, and put a rug over the hardwood floor that was deeply scratched from the plate rack falling. We had worked diligently to come up with a credible story for our parents. By this time we had closed the windows, and were hoping they would not smell the burnt pizza. I had taken room freshener and sprayed heavily throughout the house hoping to disguise any left over burnt smell.

We stood and surveyed the scene, and felt we had done a pretty good job of cleaning everything up. The back door opened, and our parents came walking into the kitchen. I could see my mother wrinkling up her nose. She said, “What’s that strange smell?” Jake asked her what it smelled like to her. She said, “Did you spray room freshener in this house?” I told her that I had done that because I really liked the smell of the new fragrance. She looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, “My goodness, Janet, I have used that room freshener for years.”

Jake was nervously fidgeting around the kitchen, and I could tell he was pretty worried. Mom walked into the dining room, and started toward the stairs to take her jacket and purse upstairs. I heard her mumbling, “What’s that rug doing there?” Then I heard a screech, “Janet, where are my Rockwell plates?” I looked over at Jake who was biting his lip pretty hard and said, “This is your story, Jake.”
Jake said, “Mom, we really didn’t know how to tell you this, but the plate rack came crashing to the floor. It broke into pieces and the plates were smashed to smithereens.”

How often have you heard your mother crying? I have to tell you our mother started crying, and it was the saddest thing I had ever witnessed. Jake practically broke out in tears himself. He put his arm around her shoulders as she sat on a chair.

Dad, who is usually pretty susceptible to Jake’s stories, looked him in the eye and said, “That plate rack didn’t have some help did it?” I knew Jake did not want to lie to my father, so he got this shocked expression on his face which seemed to say, “Surely you don’t think we would do something to knock our mother’s plate rack to the floor, do you?” I truly believe our father had a strong suspicion that plate rack did not fall to the floor on its’ own, but he didn’t say anymore.

Here’s the interesting thing about all this. Jake turned over a new leaf that day. I guess he figured it was time for him to get it together, and not be such a dork. The best part of all this is that he began to treat me with some respect. I guess he felt he owed that to me for keeping my mouth shut as to what really happened that day our parents left to go visit Granny Poo.

I kept waiting for Mrs. Richey to tell our parents she had called the Fire Department because of the smoke that was rolling out the windows. I wondered how Jake was going to handle that one. Maybe she figured we were in enough hot water as it was. If she said anything about the call, neither of our parents said anything about it.

Two days later I heard Mom calling me. “Janet,” she yelled up the stairs, “What happened to that frozen pizza I had in the freezer?” I smiled to myself, then I said, “Mom, why don’t you ask Jake, he might know.” Life is good!

Written by, Wanda Reu

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