Family

Being an excellent brother, I put up with all kinds of demands from my not so baby sister. The latest is to write letters to her while she's at sleepaway camp. This borders on the ridiculous, because she is back every Saturday morning for the weekend. This means that in order for me to successfully get a letter to her by Friday, I have to sprint to the post office as soon as she gets on the bus on Monday, and scribble something mildly entertaining down before their truck leaves. Here's the last one I sent her:

Hi Michelle,

Hope this week is even more fun than last week! While you're away I make sure to practice Stairway to Heaven, do algebra word problems, and watch two movies a day so that you don't fall behind. It's a rough life being both you and me at the same time. I've even picked out some sneakers and a dress for myself, but Mom and Dad are making me choose one of the two.

Did you play guitar at the talent show? Or did you decide to do something else instead? What did other people do? I guess you'll have to tell me at home because by the time this letter gets there you'll have already complained to me in person about not writing.

Dad and I are doing pushups twice a day now, so prepare to see two muscle-bound warriors when you return. I don't want to brag, but our beauty is on a truly meteoric rise.

OK, I don't want to keep you in your tent too long and get your counselors fired, so go pretend you like them.

-Mark "I can barely type cause my muscles are so huge" Vayngrib

P.S.: Here's a cute joke I found:
Teacher: You copied Fred's test didn't you?
Student: How did you know?
Teacher: Fred's paper says "I don't know" and yours says "Me, neither!"

Unfortunately this won't earn me any credit with Michelle. One letter is worse than none, being half as good as the two-per-week she ordered.

Managed to convince my parents to come visit relatives with me yesterday. Going alone means becoming the center of attention, and my inflated sense of modesty abhors such situations. Ergo, I have to take a wingman - in this case two.

Visiting anyone is always most difficult for Dad, especially if it's relatives. The tragedy isn't in the action, but the aftermath. He goes, he plays the social butterfly, he almost makes them believe he still gives a damn, and no one but his roommates - me, Mom and Michelle - see the vomit-laden journey home.

Hmm...I suddenly grow suspicious of his habit of going to sleep last. After all, he does put up with Mom and me, and sometimes Michelle for long stretches of time. He probably has to pump his stomach nightly and self-prescribe obscene quantities of anti-depressants. I half-want to sneak downstairs tonight and throw down the curtain, but it's almost like spying on Santa during Christmas; I'd much rather believe in the gruesome fairy tale than the indubitably more mundane truth.