Well, I turned on the "Today" show while I was eating breakfast this morning. I'm not quite sure why I chose the today show, but normally I use my breakfast time to sit and read other people's blogs. But, Blogger was rather sluggish this morning, so I just didn't want to deal with it.
In any case, I'm not saying I recommend watching the Today show. Frankly, I don't appreciate it. However, I occasionally find it amusing. Today, one of the anchors was covering sibling violence in families. And I starting thinking about growing up with three brothers...
Now, I think I can count on my two hands the number of times I ever got in a serious physically confrontation with any of my brothers. Sure, we would exchange a punch or two in frustration or mild jest, but I'm talking about serious fisticuffs now. As far as I can remember, anger-fueled rumbles were just few and far between.
There is one specific instance that I was reminded of though.
I was about eleven or twelve at the time. We (the family: mom, dad, Rob, James, and I) were driving through Arizona on the way back from a family vacation. Now, my brothers and I argued quite a bit when we were young, but roadtrips seemed to just bring those petty arguments to the surface.
During this particular excursion, James and I were getting pretty loud about how the other person was taking up too much space, or something like that. My dad warned us to cut it out. We pretty much ignored him. He warned us again. We ignored him, again. He warned us a third time. Can you guess what we did? We ignored him and kept on bickering.
Dad pulls our minivan onto the shoulder and comes to a somewhat abrupt halt...
He gets out and yanks James and I out of the car... (that's never a good sign).
Dad faces us toward each other and turns to me.
Dad: I want you to punch your brother in the face.
Me: What?
Dad (turning to Jimmy): Alright, I want you to punch your brother in the face.
Jimmy: Are you serious?
Dad (to me): Punch Jimmy in the face.
Me: NO!
Dad (to Jimmy): Jimmy, hit your brother in the face.
Jimmy: No, I can't.
This went back and forth for a while, Dad kept commanding us to hit each other and we kept refusing. Finally, he wore us down and we both started crying.
Dad: Why are you crying? I gave you the opportunity to hit your brother, and you don't want to. Why are you crying?
Me: I can't do it, Dad. I just can't do it.
Dad: Boys, if you're not mad enough to punch each other in the face, you have nothing to argue about. Get in the car and let's get out of here.
Mind you, there have since been times when I wanted to punch Jimmy in the face, but I just can't shake that "lecture" from Dad.
Still, I wonder what he would have done if one of us actually DID throw a punch...
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7 comments:
Dang it. You beat me to the punch.
I was hoping to write a post about this.
you BEAT him to the PUNCH, hah!
he would have punched you both in the face
Nice work, Papa Fuel.
On the other hand, just because something can't be resolved by violence doesn't mean it's not worth arguing about.
No, I'm pretty sure that violence is the answer.
Anaglyph: Hahahaha! Let's see how you feel about that if we put them in the back of your car!
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