Reject #3
So we all know that I’m Reject #1, right? My cousin, M, born next after me is Reject #2 (and I don’t have anything to say about him right now). Well, the cousin that was born next after me was actually C2, but she died in 1992, before my aunt started the Reject Club, so…
Anyway, Reject #3 is my brother, R, the one who got married last year and who’s wife is going to have a baby around the end of October.
I love my brother, but we didn’t get along too well growing up. We are about two and a half years apart and Mom tells me that we got along great until I started school. I don’t remember that. I just remember how he used to sneak into my room while I was at school and steal my stuff. As soon as I found something was missing, I’d look first in his room. He took my diary once. He couldn’t read, but he took it anyway - I think he liked the little lock and key as that part was hidden especially well.
R is kind of a neat freak. He’s funny that way. I used to joke that I lived with a little Danny Tanner, but he’s not that bad. His room was pretty much always spotless though, even in more recent years he’d take care of it, though I think he decided that he was too old to dust or something.
Growing up, R and I eventually had to bond together against the newcomers, our sister and brother, G and M. We were often at odds, us against them because you know, they were, like, so stinking annoying, like yeah. And R and I now get along even better than we used to. We are more on the same playing field again, I guess. I’m married with a kid, he’s married almost with a kid.
R and M live an hour south of us, so last week when we first went up to visit my step-grandma in the hospital, they came here and left their car and rode with us. On the way back we got talking about all the stupid things we used to do when we were little.
He used to break things… a lot. He has a cousin about his age on my dad’s side, those two used to get into so much trouble. They scratched up mom’s coffee table really good with their Hot Wheels. They once broke the dishwasher door by letting it down and then not only standing on it, but jumping on it. Both of them. Yeah, things like that.
And finally, while on the way home, R told us a little story, something I never knew growing up. He said that when he was old enough to be in school but still pretty little, they were in a hurry getting ready and just grabbed his little hoody out of the dryer, put it on him, then carted him off to school. During the day he started to feel strange and then suddenly people were laughing at him. Coming out of his sleeves or the bottom of the hoodie, etc, he started to find clothes that apparently belonged to our little sister: little tiny socks, and even a little pair of pink underware!
We were laughing so hard at this point, I can just see it - something like a magician who just keeps pulling out the scarf from his pocket, it just keeps getting longer. I’ll bet that little pair of pink underware was just really embarrassing, too!
He says he threw them away, he didn’t bother to hang on to the clothes to return them to Mom or our sister.
I said that I think he’s finally solved the mystery of the dryer monster.
And that, my dears, is Reject #3.
