Happy Birthday...Belated, Of Course

Baby brother turned 21 on Saturday. I had no way of getting in touch, but definitely thought about him and how much color he has brought to my life during these past 21 years.

Not only has homeboy broken my tailbone into a thousand pieces (making spinning classes and even sitting for extended periods of time unbearable) but he also provided the following amount of awesomeness:

1) Once sprayed Endust on the kitchen floor to clean it up...resulting in a floor so slippery that my mom walked in with armfuls of groceries and wiped out, sending fruit flying everywhere. Oh man, I'm laughing just thinking of it.

2) Glued a plastic turtle to the hood of the car. The same car my mom drove TO DROP ME OFF FOR MY FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL. The turtle stayed until it broke loose on the freeway one fateful day (sing hallelujah to the Lord).

3) Once, I crawled into his room and under his bed while he was singing to himself. He was making up new lyrics to the soundtrack from Alladin (favorite line: "Pucker up Princess, you're under a lot of stress..") when I grabbed his ankle, thus scaring the crap out of him.

4) Believed everything I said until about age 8. This includes the time I told him I was one of Santa's elves and he'd better be nice to me. I "proved" my elfiness by telling him to close his eyes and then handing him a random knick knack from my vast collection of crap. He also believed me when I told him that if he was good, Jack Frost would write something in the frost on his bedroom window. I then used my fingernail to scratch Hi, Pat! That totally freaked him out.

5) Was witness to the very longest fart in human history. He knows what I'm talking about.

6) Invented new "dives" up at the cabin.

7) Once shaved our cat in the middle of the night, making him look like a middle aged guy with male pattern baldness.

8) Dyed his hair cheetah print right before a M*Inerny family reunion. It looked like a cat was sleeping on his head. In a good way. Poppa M*Inerny was not pleased.

9) Totally stole my babysitting jobs.

10) Took fencing when all the other dudes in his class were on the basketball team.

11) Wrote the single best collection of fiction I have ever read: The Adventures of Flig and Captain Twanghooler.

Patrick might never read this, because, as he put it, "the Internet isn't super-easy to get" when you're in the military. But Happy Birthday to Spud, my only little brother. Meggie had Austie, and I had Paddy, so Happy Birthday to my very own little dude.