Step brothers. Although I’m not referring to the in-genius movie with Will Ferrell, my real life experience has been just as funny.
My dad married Jane, my amazing stepmother, in the middle of my third grade year. I mean, yeah, it was cool that I had some company my own age, and more of an amusing dinner conversation to listen to, but they could be mean. More than mean, in fact, they would tease and taught me with no signs of struggle.
With this marriage I received three new stepbrothers: Luke, Jeremy, and Christian. We fought about everything. “I was gonna change the channel!” “Get out of my room!” “You stole my five dollars! I saw you do it!” seemed to be the most common strand of screams echoing through our home. Obviously I loved them, they were funny and I was with them constantly, so I adapted. Plus, they were my age, so I thought of them as really good friends who just happened to live across the hall.
Luke, my oldest stepbrother, was ten, I was nine, and the twins Jeremy and Christian were eight. Our house was out of control. Every time our parents would arrange a vacation, it would backfire.
On our first trip to Mexico in 2002, all four of us went missing for over a hour. There was a man outside the hotel who had a boat that was floating down the canal, so we decided to get on it, naturally. We returned to the hotel to find cops everywhere and our parents in a fit of anger.
In 2004, at St. Lucia, the four of us held a competition in our hotel room on who could break the most stuff. I got second place in the game, but overall I think we did a good job of completely destroying the room. We broke all three beds, both lamps, cracked the mirror, the door wouldn’t close right, and the whole room was without electricity.
Our Christmas Caribbean cruise in 2007 was my personal favorite. Luke walked around the ship and stole every child-sized chocolate gnome within sight. Jeremy, Christian, and I trailed him laughing and pushing each other violently into Christmas decorations. One night while I was in the shower, one of the giant chocolate gnomes was melted with a lighter into my bed spread. Imagine a huge melted chocolate puddle…that was hidden under the sheets as I climbed into bed.
My parents stormed into the room and were shocked at the mess displayed in front of them. I had never seen a six person wrestling match live before, and never had I seen both of my parents participate simultaneously. My dad tried to hold down Christian, I was on Jeremy as he punched my stomach, and Luke was dodging the mattress that Jane tried to put on top of him so he would calm down.
Step siblings can be difficult, but they can also be great. My childhood was improved dramatically by the presence of Luke, Jeremy and Christian. I can not wait until our next funny-prank-that-ends-up-bad-and-we-get-grounded-and-almost-kicked-out-of-the-house moment together.
