the games children play

when we were little, sara and i and our older brothers (not good people by any stretch of the imagination) played a lot of strange games together. most of them were invented by my brother and the ultimate goal in all of the games was to inflict massive amounts of pain and suffering on sara and me. somehow, we always agreed to play with them, never realizing that the end result would always be tears. granted, they had a powerful control over us (and most of the kids on the street) so we likely had no choice but to play their evil games. this post was initially going to be about a specific time that i got in big trouble for retaliating during a round of "spook house", but as i ponder it, i should just describe the many different games we had to participate in. maybe one day my bro will read this and feel very very bad about himself. i won't hold my breath.

one game was called "Human Burrito". my job was to lie down on a blanket, which was lovingly spread on the floor of the basement. my brother would then roll me around and around and around in the blanket, wrapping me as tightly as possible with my arms at my sides. the stated goal was that i was supposed to try to get up from this position...moving from a supine wrap to a fully erect standing position. being the athletic, wiry little thing that i was, i could always do it. seems like the game should be over....nope. somehow, every time i would reach the desired achievement, the older larger sibling would manage to "accidentally" knock me over. seems funny, i know. but the game always occured in the "rec room" as my father called it, where there was a fireplace. so the final act of human burrito was me bouncing around with my arms strapped to my sides trying to keep my balance but inevitably falling and bashing my head into the brick fireplace. do not try this at home. sadly, even as i recall the intense headache that followed and the devastated dignity that was my life, as i re-read this post and remember myself bouncing and trying to "win", it makes me laugh out loud. some things are just funny. and some things are funny and bloody.

more later in the seond installment of "games", gotta run