"Get out of my way, Number Four," he would growl at me if we happened to pass each other. I, in a move geared solely to irritate, would retaliate by calling him "Number Two", which, with its many connotations (some of which I was completely unaware of back then, except for the obvious one), never failed to put him in a bad mood.

Boy, my sisters hated when I did that. They preferred to live life as merely pale, unnoticed moons orbiting around the planet Jonathan. To be noticed, alas, was to be the butt of practical jokes, insults and pretty successful attempts at making us vomit. A good day, by Jonathan's standards, was when he could get all three of us to cry, gag, or throw up at the same time. I think he may have been trying for a Guinness record. Thinking back on some of his more brilliantly devious "jokes", I think he may have made the book, after all.

Like the time he painstakingly assembled a See's box of chocolate covered caterpillars, each one nestled in its own little brown wax paper cradle, wrapped in colorful paper with a red satin bow, with a sweet little note saying that he just wanted us to know what great sisters we were. Some of the luckless worms even had nut sprinkles. I ate three of those before he burst from the suspense, laughing so hard he probably hurt himself. He certainly wet himself, we all saw the evidence. Oh, that was certainly a Guinness day for Jonathan.

The three of didn't quit retching till two days later, when my mother had the foresight to throw the offending box away. Jonathan was a model of cheery good will for an apallingly long time after that. Once in a while, he would stop, looking into the distance, and say, "Hmmm...I think I feel like something SWEET!", and off we would go again. Our parents couldn't touch that attitude, even with a month's grounding. "It was worth every minute of it," he would gloat, eyes sparkling. I was 7 when that little episode took place; I was 23 before I could trust ANY box of See's.

WAIT! IT GETS BETTER (I THINK)...

Jonathan wasn't the only one who got in trouble a lot. My sister, Josephine, two years older, and I couldn't escape the inevitable temptations we lured each other with. Once caught, however, we were our own worst enemies; confronted by my yelling father or mother, we would envariably get a case of the giggles, escalating a scolding into banishment to our rooms, or worse yet, the dreaded Belt of Dad.

My father was incensed the day he took Josie and I to see "2001: A Space Odyssey". We were fine during the opening and the first few minutes, though not understanding very much. But when it came to the part where the proto-humans learned to fight, and the one was beating the other with a bone...oh, it was just too much, and the hysterics we tried to keep in escaped through our noses, making an even louder and more insidious noise than mere laughing. Boy, was Dad's face red. We sat through the rest of the movie, not daring to breath, knowing we were in for it when we got home.

Banished to our rooms, we were surprised to hear Dad and Mom laughing about it. Apparently, that scene as hilarious as we thought, but being a grownup, Dad was not allowed to show his appreciation of the humor. Thank goodness for small miracles...

MORE OF THE SAME...

Perhaps I should go into a little more detail about my long-suffering siblings. I have already introduced Jonathan, scourge of my youth. I also had a younger brother, Billy, but he was only two at this time, and yet blameless. Josie? Well, Josie was two years older than me, and with Maddie, our oldest and wisest, busy with boys and high school, it fell on Josie's shoulders to teach me the ways of the world. The fact that she was only two years older didn't help much in that respect. We were in constant trouble together, and, as mentioned before, we had difficulty realizing the seriousness of the adult world. Often, we would succumb to the ridiculous, and never mind that it was in the middle of what our parents considered 'adult things'.

On one occasion (memorable only because of the particular shade of purple my father's face turned), was when a particularly old friend of the family passed away, and my mother held a rosary in our living room. We were all pressed to attend, and we dressed in our best.

The woman who said the rosary was also an old friend of the family. She was from Mexico, and never learned to speak English very well. She conducted the rosary in Spanish.

The bad part for us kids, anyway, was that she would begin a prayer with a deep breath, say as many of the words as she could as quickly as she could, and then would continue the prayer while inhaling. If you don't think this is absolutely hilarious, try it yourself.

Boy, was that hard! Every time she began the inhale, we would try our best not to let the laughs spill out, especially from our noses. However, after one particularly fine horse-snort from Jonathan, my father rounded us all up and herded the crowd up to our rooms. "Not a word!" Dad whisper-yelled as he left. "I will deal with you later!" Those six words were guaranteed to make us all quell with fear. Dad's "dealing" often included a scene in which he would be be taking off his belt, one loop at a time, all the while asking us, "Do you know why I am taking off my belt?" Oh, yes, indeed, did we know.

After about an hour, we were ready to hit the rubber room. We heard Dad coming up the stairs, and all of us held a vision of the beating to come. Dad came into our room, and sat on Maddie's bed.

"Do you know why I sent you up here?" he asked as he slowly undid the buckle of his belt. " "Y...yes," I quivered, fascinated by his hand as he slowly pulled his belt out of the loops. "Do you know why I am taking off my belt?" he asked, as the cursed thing slid through the last loops. "Because...you're gonna spank us?" I blurted, though both Josie and Maddie knocked at me with their elbows. "No," Dad said as he finished pulling the belt off, "Because I am tired and want to change. You kids know that it was wrong to laugh at old Amelia, but I know why you laughed, and I can't blame you!" Then he leaned over and inhaled, and did a perfect impression of her. "Don't tell your mama I did that. She would be really mad at me," he grinned. "If I hadn't sent you up here, you would have had me snorting away too! But you kids have to learn that there's a time and a place for everything. It will be hard, but that will be part of your becoming adults." Then he kissed us all, and left. Nobody spoke for quite a while, it was such a shock.

It was about this time that we began to realize that, yes, our parents were actually people, with thoughts and emotions just like ours. The more human they became, the easier it was to deal with life, knowing that they saw the ridiculous once in a while, too.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Listen. As a mother of two, I now know that this is one thing you should never do: go out on New Year's Eve and tell your children, "See you next year!" You may think it's a cute joke, but your kids will freak. Just as we did, long ago one New Year's Eve.

My parents decided to go out New year's Eve. That was fine; Maddie and Jonathan (kind of) were used to taking care of us, and Maddie had even offered to make dinner. We were all sitting at the table, trying hard to eat Maddie's tuna casserole, when my parents came down to say goodbye. Mother looked fabulous; Father looked very uncomfortable. Trying his best to be jocular, Father said, "Well, it looks like you kids are all right for the night. Listen to Maddie! She's in charge. Well, see you all...next year!" Mother looked at him, as if to say, "Explain yourself!" But he didn't.

Billy, who was in the middle of playing with his tuna surprise and singing his favorite song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (except, the way Billy sang it, it went, "You better wash out, you better wash out, you better wash out, you better wash out...") stopped, looked at them, and said, "Ness year? No, Momma, no, Daddy...", and began to cry. Jonathan looked pained, and Josie and I both clutched, for a second. Then Maddie, our mother in training, said, "It's just a saying--next year is only a few hours away." Thank God for Maddie. Josie and I would have been hard pressed to believe that Mom and Dad would NOT leave us for a year; we knew well enough how bad we had been.

Mom and Dad left. Maddie immediately assumed the role of General. We could not speak, could not laugh. We were to eat our dinner in silence. Jonathan took this as a great opportunity to try and get Maddie's goat. This was easily accomplished by one terrible thing Jonathan had against Maddie; he knew her REAL name.

Mother must have been in some idyllic land when she had Maddie. She insisted on naming her "Mathilda". We had no Mathildas in our family. As we all grew older, no one could figure out where the inspiration came from. Until one day, when Jonathan happened to hear the Australian song, "Waltzing Mathilda". He recognized a goldmine of humiliation when he saw it.

From then on, Jonathan left no stone unturned in his quest to mortify Maddie. In school, one could often hear, echoing in the hallways, "Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda, we'll go a'waltzing, Mathilda one day...", sung at the top of Jonathan's voice, in front of girlfriends, boy friends, and teachers alike. Who could know the humiliation Maddie suffered at the hands of the infamous Jonathan?

"Hey, how's your billabong, Maddie?" he would ask, in front of anyone who happened to be in the vicinity. "gettin' bigger, eh?" Maddie was mortified.

Jonathan, innocent as can be, softly started singing. "Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda..." Billy started making a pile of tuna surprise on the table, singing to himself, "You better wash out, you better wash out..."

Josie and I were hard pressed not to laugh. Maddie sent us a hard look, as if to say, "Laugh and you die!" But what could we do? Between Billy's "wash out", and Jonathan's "waltzing Mathilda", it was all we could do to try and hold our hilarity in. For Josie and I, that never worked. Billy, pleased with our reaction, began scooping up tuna surprise with his spoon and piling it on his high chair tray, "Saying, "Oh, oh! I make a BIG one!" Josie and I shook with mirth; Maddie surveyed us icily; Jonathan just bided his time.

Maddie, the ever-conscious elder,said testily, "You realy shouldn't provoke him, you know. He wouldn't be making messes that I have to clean up if you wouldn't L-A-U-G-H at him!"

Now, Maddie hardly ever spelled words out. For one thing, she knew it would take me a moment to catch up. For another, Josie and I for the most part were never in a position to make Maddie that angry. Hearing her spell words out made us both realize that she was getting very upset with us. Quickly, we managed to calm down and resume eating.

Billy, sitting in his high chair, straightened his two-year-old self up and said to Maddie, "I don't care if they DO stop laughing!"

In the moment of stunned silence following this pronouncement, we all looked at each other in amazement. How could Billy have known...then the hilarity hit. somehow, Billy knew what Maddie had spelled out! This was just too much to bear. We all, including Maddie, burst out laughing.

Unfortunately (or more likely, as planned all along), Jonathan had a mouthful of milk when he "burst". It made its way through the air and ended up all over Josie. "Touchdown!" Billy yelled, and giggled.

Now, Josie had never had a strong stomach. She couldn't even watch someone spit without gagging, much to Jonathan's amusement. Most of the milk ended up on her face, some on her mouth. When it sank in that that milk had come out of Jonathan's mouth, it was all over. Josie jumped up to try and make it to the sink; in her haste, she tripped over the chair leg and fell, eventually losing her dinner where she lay.

I didn't have milk in my mouth, but I did have food. It came out in a disgusting lump, which looked just as bad as the mess Josie had made. I knew I wasn't far behind; in fact, I didn't even make it out of my chair. I upchucked right in my dinner plate.

Maddie's face was pale. Confronted by my mess to her left, and Josie's regurgitation to her right, she managed to make her way, with dignity, to the kitchen window, where she vomited on Mother's prized rose bush.

Jonathan was in tears, laughing so hard no sound was coming out. He was holding his sides, leaning so far back in his chair he tipped over and fell. The only good thing that happened is that Jonathan laughed himself sick, dragging himself weakly to the waste basket, where he alternately gagged and weakly tried to catch his breath. We all witnessed his suffering of the same humiliation that we did, therefore saving ourselves from later taunting.

Only Billy was left, sitting blithely in his chair, playing with the big mound of tuna surprise, and singing in his cherub-y voice: "Oh, ya better wash out, better wash out, better wash out, better wash out..."

Luckily, for once we all banded together and cleaned up the mess before Mother and Father got home, though Josie was overwhelmed once more, and almost got the chain reaction going again. We resisted mightily, and finally got it all cleaned up, as we did ourselves, and got to bed.

The next morning, as I came down the stairs, I could hear Mother and Father in the kitchen talking to Billy. "Billy, what did you say happened yesterday?" Mother was asking. "Evwebodies frow up!" Billy seriously replied. As I turned the corner, I could see him, hand in the air, displaying four of his chubby fingers. "Two times, Momma! Evwebodies frow up two times! 'N Jonafan spoosh da milk - like dis!" he took a pull from his sip cup, then spit it (and a well done milk-spit, too - I think Jonathan gave him lessons) all over Mother. "Touchdown!" Billy yelled, and giggled.

I immediately made a U-turn to go back upstairs and tell Jonathan that Mother wanted him. Even I knew an opportunity that was too good to miss.

DANCE BREAK...

More to come...