The Family (Or most of them)

The Family (Or most of them)
The Family

June 26, 2006

WOMEN ARE FOR TEASING...and other stuff



THIS is a picture, one of maybe 50 or so, that I have on my fridge. It's me, about 20 years ago, making a goofy pose for a picture as I'm making absurdly silly, boy-like faces at my eminently teasable sister.

Think about that...

I was teasing my sister -- one of three I have, all of them younger than me to go with two brothers -- as she slept on a hot afternoon at a cottage on Wallace Lake in the wilds of eastern Manitoba in the beautiful Canadian Shield.

And I was getting huge laughs out of it. And I have been doing it for three generations of women in my life.

My sister (who would many years later struggle with breast cancer and survive the removal of both her breasts, and become a huge inspiration for me) promptly woke up and just about kicked me in the gonads. Mission accomplished, gonads still intact.

And now fast-forward to yesterday, and I was teasing my daughter by taking pictures of her in her pyjamas, a big zit on her cheek, hair all tussled, looking not like she'd want to look for a picture, hiding her face behind a cushion.

The pictures themselves? Lost, unfortunately, somewhere between a digital camera I still don't know how to properly use and a fancy-schmancy computer I still don't know how to properly operate.

Suffice to say, said daughter was protesting as dad took the unwanted pix as he was laughing, and she was crying and cursing and laughing all at the same time...

So the moral of today's moribund missive is that women are many things to men, the most basic of them, of course, being that they are indispensable and our reason for being and everything, basically, that we live for.

But an inescapable, unavoidable, thoroughly enjoyable and necessary element of that male/female reality is that they are teasable, and we males wouldn't be doing our duty -- or making their lives worth living -- without teasing them beyond all reason.

All of the most precious women in my life -- my mom, who we incessantly teased about her manner of even saying hello on the phone; my grandmother, a French-Canadian under-five-footer who I'd pinch on her large bum and turn around in her swivel chair (you HASS-HOLE!).

My three sisters, who still treasure my teasing and give it back to me in spades and much more; all the women I've been with romantically, in one way or another that only enriched our relationships; and now my daughter.

They all have had to endure my silly, roll-your-eyes, moronic, kid-like humor that's modelled after, let's see, Agent 86 on Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes, Ace Ventura, Mr. Bean, Austin Powers...you get it.

And they love it, or at least I hope so. And if I didn't have the freedom to do it and to have women who love me accept the corny stuff and laugh at it, and let themselves be the targets of it, life just wouldn't be so much fun.



5 comments:

  1. Well, this is a shocker. I never even talked to anybody who shared this trait with me, let alone read it in print!

    Unfortunately for my own younger sister, there was only one of her, and she bore the full brunt of the teasing. Often it was good; but often, in my case, it degenerated into just bugging her.

    But the good times were good - and goofy! One of my early memories is her looking out the window at me as I walked off for school. She was about four and wished she could go. I was maybe 11. I would skip up the street with an exaggerated smile of lunatic delight while gazing back at her, then at the last minute pretend to trip and scootch down behind the grass banking of the neighbor's lawn, thus disappearing out of sight and on my way...

    I normally cared what people thought of me, but when it came to amusing sis, I had to limits. She was also my sole reason for growing a scraggly, really bad beard my first year at an out of state grad school. I put up with it for a semester just to get the laugh, and shaved it off Christmas vacation!

    Glad to see I belong to some kind of "club." We need help.

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  2. You're so cruel with that trick on your sis, Darius...BUT WELCOME TO THE CLUB!!!!

    The way I figure it, just the way we'll do anything for the attention of females -- hell, even our sisters' -- my experience is as much as they'll whine and roll their eyes and tell how childish you are, they love the kidding.

    It's just one of those things that makes the world go round.

    With sisters, there are no limits. And my three sissies have no limits either. They punch me, slap me, abuse me...and we love it.

    Nice to hear from you again.

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  3. You goofballs are kidding right?
    My little sister started biting me when she was 2. Dad had to roll her up to the supper table strapped to a dolly like Hannibal Lechter.
    When she was four she released my bunny from it's cage and chased it away while I was at school. I have never forgiven her.

    I would not be here today if I had teased her like you guys tormented your sisters.
    She is still out there, ever so patient and cunning, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike!

    Mom always liked you best WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!!!
    wait..what was that noise...I...I...arrrgh..thud.

    HA! She'll be so pissed off if she reads this! Neener neener neener.

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  4. Ew, Christine! That sounds a little over the top! But yeah, big bros can be cruel.

    It's funny tho how the unconditional love comes through in the end.

    Thanks for dropping by!

    Now HE, you're being a little harsh...aren't you? Or, maybe not. The point is, you probably deserve to be struck...neener neener neener.

    ReplyDelete

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