Dear reader,

I don’t know if it goes against the rules of blogging to post more than once in the same day. Guess who has two thumbs and isn’t going to stop me? This guy right here (I’m pointing my thumbs back at myself). You know who else can’t stop me? You, reader. And I’d like to see you try. I say this as someone who has never won a fight. Not to say I didn’t get in plenty as a kid, because I deffo did. I could tell you what I did today, but I spent the entire day feeling bummy, and didn’t go anywhere because the weather is rough and everything is shut down and icy and poopy and I watched a true crime documentary with my mom that disturbed me and I’m too awake now. So I’m gonna drop some lore.

I think I mentioned before that I have two older brothers, but in case I didn’t, I have two older brothers. We’re stair-step, meaning we’re each a year apart, and we’re super close. Two absolute kings, my brothers. We did silly things growing up, had many adventures, and have endless lore. We were homeschooled (God bless my mom) and did everything together. Grew up overseas together, did jujitsu lessons, piano lessons, filmed movies my oldest brother made up (I always died), same co-ops, same first job, same friends, same community college, same four year college. We never fully got sick of each other, and now, in our twenties, are still the best of friends.

Enough of the sweet things, though, I want to tell you about a fight we got in. Emphasis on “we” because fights hardly ever stayed between two of us, and maturity was nonexistent. Let me set the scene for you.

I do not remember what time of year it was, I only remember that I was probably nine, which meant my brothers were ten and eleven. We were staying at my grandparents’ farm (which I adore but for some reason was super bitter about at the time) because my parents were out of the country. I think they were in Africa, but that’s somewhat irrelevant. The weather was pretty enough that we spent most of our time outside, but not pretty enough that the pool was open, so it might’ve been in autumn.

The nature of my relationship with my brothers during this season of life was that we fought like wild animals, but forgave quickly and somehow nothing left a mark. To this day, our cousins laugh at how incredibly violent we were toward each other over minor offenses, like punching each other in the stomach because the other person said something we didn’t like (I did that. I take full responsibility). But to be fair, we thought my cousins were absurd because they would get in the tiniest little verbal disputes over something nuts and hold grudges for hours. Our method was so much more efficient. Anyway, back to the story.

I don’t recollect how the fight started, I just know that it was dusk and we were outside in the driveway, the garage was open, and my brothers thought it would be funny to try to run over my feet in the mini tractor that our much, much younger cousin had. They had hot-wired it so that when you put it in second gear it was freakishly fast, and they weaponized it immediately. Plus our parents weren’t there to mitigate any of it. It was beautiful. They drove after me threatening to turn me into “kyarn” (Eastern Kentucky term for roadkill. The more you know!) while I ran and screamed, and for some reason I had a wrench.

I chucked the wrench in pure rage (each and every person in my family inherited the Hatfield temper, of THE Hatfields and McCoys. My great grandmother’s maiden name was Hatfield, and the lore is mostly true.). I think I was trying to throw it at my oldest brother, but God bless my aim, I missed, which made me angrier. He rolled over my foot and laughed. That dirty sucker laughed. Naturally, I tackled him, or someone did, because we ended up wrestling on the hill next to the house. When we finally stood up, I slapped my oldest brother as hard as I could across the face, and then ran for my life inside the house and stood next to my grandpa because I knew they couldn’t lay a finger on me if I was with him (perks of being the only girl).

A few hours passed, and it was time to go to bed. The three of us were sharing a room with two beds and a blowup mattress in the middle. It was my turn to read the Bible aloud before we went to bed, as we took turns doing every night. A quick fact about me, I hated reading out loud growing up, because I was afraid of messing up and getting ruthlessly teased for it, and the more bent-out-of-shape I got about it, the more I messed up, and the more I got teased. A really lame cycle. 

So I read the Bible. Tension was high from the fighting earlier, and my palms were sweaty, not just because of my dad’s genetics, but because I was afraid I was going to mess up a word. I read through the passage with ease, and closed the Bible shut. Perfect, excellent, done. Except not, because I guess in the middle of my reading the Devil took over because allegedly I read the word “flood” the same way you would “glued” but didn’t realize it. The boys were dying laughing and repeating “FLEWD” over and over, which made me livid. I mean, absolutely livid.

One thing led to another, and my middle brother and I were punching each other full speed and yelling. I think I was crying. He was laughing. My oldest brother was perched on his bed watching, and periodically shushing us because my grandmother was in the living room reading and could totally hear every detail of what was going on. I don’t know how long we punched each other, I just remember everything aching, and us eventually both crying and apologizing and hugging each other and me finally admitting that I probably did say “flewd” (up until this point I was denying it because I swear I didn’t feel myself say it).

My oldest brother had mysteriously disappeared from the room somewhere during the fight and we hadn’t noticed it. As it happens, that son of a gun went to the bathroom and initiated World War III on the toilet. I mean, it was a warzone, the blowout of the century. Nothing diffuses a fight like a solid poop joke (or in this case, liquid). Stink leaked under the door of the bathroom like poison gas, and my middle brother and I dissolved into laughter. Even my grandmother, who was wordlessly aware of every detail of the events of the night, chuckled a little bit while my middle brother and I lost our minds cackling. When my oldest brother finally emerged (somehow without seven extra fingers and chemical burns, though I swear the air was radioactive in there), he had a shy, demure little smile. The only thing my grandma said the whole night was to him.

“Did you crack the window in there?”

“No ma’am. I will.”

She nods.

My middle brother and I are laughing so hard at the absurdity of it all that our laughs are silent and tears are flowing.

We all go to bed, and don’t tell our parents til many moons later.

That is my lore. The moral of this story is that if you get in a big fight with someone, it will all be okay as long as someone has a terrific bout of diarrhea. Cue the laugh track while I take my bow. Thank you, thank you very much.