The Scream Ignored Round the World--Sibling Submission

As children do, we naturally found different amusing ways of entertaining ourselves using the resources we had available to us at the time.  One fine Oregon morning, okay it may have been afternoon or possibly evening but I’m 73.2% sure it wasn’t evening.  Anyway, One fine Oregon morning in the great state of Oregon, the Fennimore boys, roughly ages 8,6,4, and 2², were trying to entertain ourselves and we discovered that jumping from the top bunk bed to the floor was a lot of fun.  It generated an especially lurid sound when we landed so we decided to cushion the landing.  We pulled a mattress off the top bunk and decided that we could easily jump on it now because we had a plush cushion.  These mattresses weren’t exactly top notch quality.  We could easily pinch them with our index finger and thumb and compress it down to about a half an inch thick.  If you dropped a marble from shoulder height, shoulder height as in at our age back then shoulder height, and the marble would hit the floor through the mattress.

We’re jumping onto these things from a bunk maybe 4.5 feet high onto this lush cushion we have rigged up.  Tony, Ken, Gabe and I are jumping with minimal pause at the top, basically enough time for the previous person to clear and that’s about it.  Greg decides to join in the fun.  He gets in line and when he gets to the top bunk, his mind begins to encase the event he is about to embark on. 

He is on the top bunk and stands there as still as if he were the one who turned back to see Gomorrah (biblical thingy, the person turned to a statue of stone because she turned back to look at the town.  No…nothing?  It’s okay, it’s not that well known of a story, there are a few people that know it but it’s really hit and miss.  Kinda like the story about David (not the Goliath David) and the Zombies.  Even fewer people know that one, it’s a tragedy.  Honestly, I don’t understand why people don’t know these stories or if they do you never hear about them when people are discussing the bible, it makes no sense to me.  Anyway, David’s best friend accidently spills this beaker of toxic fumes that turns people into flesh eating cyborgs (oh ya they are ninja, cyborg zombies, awesomeness, I’m surprised you haven’t heard this story.  It’s crazy what people have and haven’t heard) zombies that begin to terrorize Vietnam, then he gets angry and starts to fight them developing this new martial art he names, Muy Thai (which is Korean for Zombie Stopper), and he has this ninja, cyborg, zombie pinned down and…oh crap the original story!  Long story short, David wins by freeing King Arthur.) and Greg won’t jump.  We start to get impatient and start offering assistance.  Being next in line, I offer him a little extra assistance and push him off the bed onto this lavish mattress.

He lands and lets out this blood curdling scream when he lands and we now are the salt statues.  Here is our around 2 year old brother screaming after I push him off the bed.  We all take off running outside to make it seem like we did nothing wrong.  Our loving father is sitting at the dining room table doing taxes, or something grown uppy, and hears the crying after the dust settled from the rest of us leaving.  He lets Greg cry for a while because let’s face it, kids cry for no reason.  After a few minutes of Greg crying, he realizes that this cry is a little different than the normal ones.  He calls up to Greg asking him to come down so he can see what happened and punish accordingly thinking this is a run of the mill tiny scratch that toddlers typically react this way to.

2 year old Greg, limps down the stairs quite slowly and makes it to the dining room.  We are talking around 24 stairs.  Our dad realizes that he is a little pale and that this is no ordinary scrape/bruise.  Something is wrong with him.  It turns out that after I pushed him, Greg wasn’t watching how we landed and landed the wrong way (HIS fault not mine) and broke his leg when he was 2 years old and was in a cast for some time.

We still argue to this day whether the push to clear our takeoff platform was justifiable or not.  Since this is my story, COMPLETELY justifiable.  He shouldn’t have looked before he leaped.  Lesson learned.

-Paddy, on special request from Kuwait

Hair

Hair, or the lack of it, is often a point of discussion when us siblings get together.  For example, Maureen may walk in sometime with straight hair and I'll comment on it (usually it's all golden curls).  My hair is always unruly, brown, and curly.

The boys' hair really isn't ever discussed unless it's in terms of a recent hair cut or the current need for a trim.  I don't know the last time any of my brothers went to a barber--I've cut their hair for years and now that they've all started growing up and moving away they buy their own $20 pair of clippers and either cut their own--and live with awkwardly shorn locks until someone can trim it up for them--or they cut each other's hair.  Sometimes with more success than others such as yesterday when I noticed Gabe didn't trim Greg's little Widow's Peak and that little angle of hair was creeping down his forehead.  

Hair with the boys is usually discussed in terms of the amount they have in places that aren't their head--don't worry, totally keeping this family friendly.  For instance, Tony has hobbit feet.  This means that he has super wide, super flat feet with super amounts of hair covering them going into even fuzzier, hairier legs.  

They also often discuss how much hair each of them have, or doesn't have as the case may be.  I can still remember the one time Paddy thought he finally had a chest hair and realized it was just an arm hair that had shed and landed on his chest.  

And then there was that Apples to Apples game where Sis referenced someone's now ex-girlfriend's hair to make a perfectly-timed, ultimately hilarious joke.  Still makes me chuckle to this day. 

So all in all, we are a weird family and that's a bit about our hairier memories.  Ha ha.  

And don't get me started on facial hair, leg hair, arm pit hair, toe hair, wacky eyebrow hair, ear hair, knuckle hair, or who has the thickest/thinnest/blondest/brownest hair...

My Chest Still Hurts When I Think About It

Once upon a time there was a girl (me) who moved back home from college to help her dad take care of her younger siblings (in this story I'm referring to Paddy and KP).  However, that girl still liked to hang out with friends and would, on the odd occasion, get home later in the evening.  Say after everyone else was in bed.  And on the rare occasion when that happened, she tried to be veeeeeery quiet so as to not wake anybody up.  Which was silly because it's a 100-year old farm house and the stairs are creakier than a 90-year old marathoner's knees.

Anyway on this particular evening I, I mean she...oh heck lets just go with 'I' and 'me'--I was trying to be oh-so-quiet as I tip-toed through the house, brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas, and turned out the downstairs lights.  I am a wee bit scared of the dark, or was at the time I mean, and 100-year old farmhouses exacerbate that condition so my heart may have been beating just a half-beat faster than usual as I tip-toed to the bottom of the stairs.  The house was dark and I had to pat the hallway wall until I found the light switch.

Click, click, click.  Nothing.  

Dang it, why did nothing in this house ever work?  The light bulb must have blown out.  

So I ran my hand along the wall as I climbed the narrow, creaky stairs, just to make sure I could find my way up them.   After about 15 steps I reached the first landing, took a sharp right and continued up another four steps.  By now there was a banister and I adjusted my purse and other things I was carrying so that I could use the banister to guide me through the pitch dark and into my bedroom where, God-willing, there was a functioning light bulb.  

As I reached the junction to my bedroom, two enormous dark shapes jumped out at me and roared.  

I screamed.  I screamed so loud that my chest hurt like a horse had just kicked me in the ribcage. 

I screamed so hard that I no longer needed a light because little flashy stars were twinkling in my line of vision.

And rolling on the floor, nearly peeing their pajamas with laughter, were Paddy and KP.  Seriously.  They couldn't talk for at least 20 minutes and were gagging for air as their faces turned blue with hilarity.  

Meanwhile I sat on the floor and leaned against the banister with my head between my knees, rubbing my chestbone, and trying not to pass out.  

In hindsight, yes it was incredibly hilarious, in fact it only took me until the next day to admit that but at that moment, that night I was so startled.  And to this day I have still never screamed so hard that my chest hurts and my eyes see stars when there aren't any.  

In fact, my chest still hurts when I think about it.  You stinkers.