If you leave this story with nothing else, remember this: I was once a much worse person than I am today.
I’m the oldest of three kids in my family. We’re each separated by about four years. While I certainly fulfilled the role of big brother as dominator, I rarely took it upon myself to lead. I think that my brother Jordan, four years my junior, truly felt the full force of this in his left nostril one day in Wisconsin when my parents had trustingly left me in charge of the house.
My relationship with my brother oftentimes went the course of “I wonder what would happen if _____ happened to someone?” and I often took advantage of my familial superiority to see these wonderings through to action. They usually started with something like, “Jordan, we should try this,” which was met with initial hesitation, returned with general big-brother badgering from me, and usually his submission in the end.
This was around the time that we’d moved to the States from Germany, and many things that every American kid grows up with were still new and amazing to me. Super Soakers for example. I think I’d seen ads on our one American TV station in Germany for them, and of course my little mind was easily molded by advertising into thinking they were the coolest thing since…..ever. So I had a Super Soaker at this point. Not one of the industrial, dislodge a small child from the pool with the blast models, but it would get you wet. For some reason, I enjoyed pressurizing the canister with air while the gun had no water in it, and just shooting streams of air much more than water. I can remember being mesmerized by watching the skin on my hand and arm dimple under the force of a pencil thin tube of air.
The question was burning a hole in me: what would it look like if “one” were to discharge an air stream up “another’s” nose? I imagined cartoon sound effects and general hilarity.
“Jordan, let’s try this. It won’t hurt or anything, it’ll probably just look really really funny. Your nose will get huge and then go back to normal.”
He wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, but I eventually made a convincing case. It didn’t seem to matter to him that he wouldn’t get to see the hilarious results, just experience them. I probably also did something underhanded like pump the gun once or twice then shoot off a puny shot of air with something like “See? How could that hurt?”
I gave the water gun a healthy priming and set the nozzle against his upper lip pointing nasalward.
“Ready?”
He wasn’t, and I knew it, but he gave a slight nod of the head.
I was right about one thing, his nose did burst out to a larger size than it’s ever been. As I pulled the trigger, his eyes widened in direct proportion to his nostril, as if the air going into his nose was bulging them open and outward. After about a second he screamed. Of course it hurt. I can’t believe that I even considered it not hurting.
My first reaction was “Ssssshh! Ssssshhh! It’s ok it’s ok sssshhh!!” I didn’t want to be found out, and the way he was yelling there was a good chance most of the neighborhood would come knock down the door.
I came clean when the folks got home, and I still wonder if I would’ve had Jordan not been in blinding pain. If I’d done something equally stupid, but only involving me with no way of being found out, I wonder if I would have said anything. Jordan, I really am sorry.
6 comments:
I have a similar memory in my past. Except, remove super soaker, insert mouth wrapped around someones nose, and then blowing. This always required a couple of pepople to subdue the victim. But the effects amazing.
My older sister was a drama queen, so more than wanting to potentially injure me, her aim was to convince our savvy parents that I was injured. The most famous incident involved her talking me into putting ketchup below my nose and arranging myself around the family bikes to look as if I'd fallen on them and passed out. I was 7 and she was 11. And though I remained as still as possible, my parents didn't even blink before angrily yelling my sister's name out upon my discovery.
Wow...lol
I've been blessed with nice brothers I guess. ;)
Sam and Sean only threw fire crackers at me once (not sure if it was an accident or not) and woke me up with my little Tyco Kid's radio on full blast in my ear. I can't remember anything else aweful that they did (I may be repressing it though). I was generally included in any nice normal kid play. :)
Hey, bro. Speaking as the little brother whose nostrils are forever deformed by this incident, I'd like to point out a few little discrepencies in your story. First off, I LOVED this little phrase, "He wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, but I eventually made a convincing case." As I recall, your "compelling case" included the Mafioso-style technique of telling me that every time I said "No" to your little proposal, you'd pump up the gun 10 times more.
Just thought I'd add that little tidbit for general amusement. Also, now that Dad mentions it, I wish I had done something sneaky and underhanded to get you back, something you never found out the perpetrator of, that NOW I could tell you about! Ehh...I'm vindictive. Later, man!
While that's disputable due to the fact that air bubbles were probably reorganizing brain matter in your head when you were asked "What happened?", I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Touché, sir.
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