Oh Brother

My little brother, Chase, is home from college this week, so I thought it fitting to present you with a few random facts about my little brother and me.

1) There is a llama farm down the street from my house. Chase thinks this is hilarious.

2) I think Napoleon Dynamite, Ace Ventura and The Ladies' Man are three of the funniest movies I have ever seen.

3) But I never would've found the aforementioned movies funny were it not for my littler brother's ability to imitate all of the above.

4) My little brother is very protective of me.

5) He's only "little" chronologically - He's far taller and stronger than I am...But because I was born first, I still have the right to call him "little."

6) When my mom was pregnant with my brother, I put in a request for a little sister.

7) Because I really wanted a sister, I decided to make Chase into the sister I never had. When he was three or four years old, I dressed him up in a pink corduroy jumper, striped undershirt, Mary Janes and an old wig of my mother's. I believe I may have put make up on him, too. After his transformation was complete, I paraded him around our neighborhood, introducing him as "Chaserina, my cousin."

8) My little brother calls me Mytrle, and I call him Elmer. They are the two oldest sounding names we could come up with.

9) I call my parents' dog Poopie, even though his name is Sam. Chase was offended that I'd nickname Sam after feces, so he took to calling my cat Mangy, instead of Smokey.

10) I really don't care for the Austin Powers movies, but when Chase imitates Goldmember, I can't help but laugh. ("I love goooooold. De schmell of it. De taschte of it. De texchture. Gold is schexchy.")

11) Chase's alter ego is named Scorpion, a pre-pubescent evil ninja.

12) There is a Saturday Night Live episode in which Will Ferrell plays Alex Trebek on Jeopardy!, and Burt Reynolds changes his name to Turd Ferguson halfway through the round. Chase and I can watch it, recite it and laugh at it over and over and over.

13) This past Christmas, my dad shaved off his goatee well over a month before Chase and I noticed it was missing.

14) When Chase was in high school and playing football, he sometimes ate Power Bars, a brown and sticky concoction of protien and sugar encased in a shiny wrapping. One of these Power Bars had made its way to the bottom of his backback, and Chase found it a few weeks after it had settled there. He brought it into my room on this fateful day, and used his hands to squish the bar into the shape of excrement. It was a perfect rendering: Color, size and shape mirrored exactly what one would find floating in a toilet. Chase and I laughed until tears poured down our faces at the mere sight of the thing, but then decided to put it to even better use. My mother and father were sitting downstairs, watching TV when I ran ahead of Chase to the kitchen. Immediately behind me followed Chase, hunched over and complaining of a stomachache. As he hobbled through the living room, he simultaneously coughed and dropped the model turd out of the leg of his shorts, giving the impression that he had taken a spontaneous shit in the middle of the living room. My mother leaped to her feet "Chase, are you okay? What happened?" I began to crack up as soon as the turd hit the floor, spurred on even further by the reaction of my family. Sam, the family's Golden Retriever, ran to the discarded feces, attemtping to gobble it up. Once he was pried away from it, my mom inched closer. "What is it?" she asked, unsure of whether her son had or hadn't pinched a loaf on her hardwood floors. "It's a Power Bar, Mom" he choked out through peals of laughter. "Are you sure," she inquired suspiciously, as though we were trying to cover up an epidemic of loose bowels. "I'm sure," I managed to squeak out. Apparently choosing to not take our word and to find out for herself, she crouched down, lifted the makeshift turd from the floor and took a whiff. Chase and I will laugh at that moment for the rest of our lives.

15) For as long as I can remember, if Chase and I find ourselves using up the last bit of milk in the fridge, we will leave a millimeter at the bottom of the gallon, since whoever empties the jug must throw it away.

16) When Chase and I drive anywhere, he will entertain me by singing along, horribly and out of tune, with songs on the radio.

17) "Tina! Come get some ham!" "But my lips hurt real bad!" "I don't wanna be an evil ninja!" - Chase can say any of the above in the appropriate voice, and I am certain to laugh, no matter what my mood.

18) Chase and I bonded over Drop Dead Fred many, many years ago. We recently rented it again, and it was just as funny as we'd remembered it.

19) I am very protective of my little brother.

20) I don't think there's anybody in this world who can make me laugh like Chase can.