Make Me Laugh And Make Me Pee Your Bed--

When I was about eight, my friend G was spending the night and Mum had left us (G, my brother Steve and I) in the care of my older sister who preferred hanging out on her queen-sized bed eating sunflower seeds and talking on the phone.

What this meant was that we really were two eight year olds and one nine year old boy left to our own devices.

What THAT meant was that we had free reign to make up our own games, do our own thing, and live our own lives WAY WAY too early in our budding careers.

It meant that we did certain things we shouldn’t have, and did things we shouldn’t tell...

The three of us one night were playing a game called “Make Me Laugh”. The rules were simple. Two of us sat straight-faced on the bed and the third tried to do something funny to make the other two at least crack a smile. Bad jokes were tried. The wee wee wag was tried. Making fart noises with the armpits was attempted.

Nothing seemed to be working. I started. G got a turn. Then my brother got up and he had a not so brilliant idea that worked brilliantly.

G and I were sitting on the end of the bed, waiting for some hilarity we knew we could NOT laugh at. My brother pulled out his wee wee like G had done. Yeah yeah... That one again...

No. Not that one.

My brother started peeing on my bed.

A big, looping stream. That muffled sound of liquid pouring onto wool and cotton. Bubbles forming on my blanket temporarily, then fizzing into my mattress.

And of course I grew livid and told him to stop.

And of course G thought it was the funniest thing he’d seen in years and was rolling with laughter on the floor.

My brother had won, and he had won convincingly.

I had only one choice here.

To retaliate.

I ran into my brother’s room and started peeing on HIS bed. From the doorway. Full stream ahead.

My sister still on the phone in her room on her bed, eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells into a shoe box.

I was a veritable fountain. I peed with all the vengeance of a boy who had just had his bed peed upon.

I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.

I think I took an oath or something.