Don’t put anything past bone-breaking younger siblings

As a young boy of 3 or so, I broke my left wrist. According to my mother, I was climbing on the back of the couch and fell off. According to me, my younger sister, a newborn at the time, pushed me off. I’ll continue to use my version, despite its unlikeliness, as it comforts me to think my sister was messing with my life right from the get-go of hers.

I’ve managed to avoid my sister’s bone-breaking ways for the past 35 years, despite some of her best efforts during childhood. My fortune may have come to an end earlier this week, because while watering plants around my home, I tripped over the base to my son’s basketball hoop as I walked backwards to straighten out a garden house. To break the fall, I used my left wrist and in turn may have fractured a bone near my thumb.

I’m using the word “may” because the fracture that could be there can’t be detected by x-rays immediately. I’ll have to wait another week to find out if it’s broken. I was told, “If it still hurts, it’s broke.”

My wife’s cousin, an athletic trainer, put it in better terms:

“That lovely bone that takes a week to show up on x-rays happens to be the scaphoid bone. Which is located in the snuffbox, which is found on the radial dorsal aspect of hand. This fracture is usually the result of falling on an outstretched hand, or as we athletic trainers love to call it the FOOSH! Very common injury in such sports as: basketball, baseball, football and softball. Or in Scott’s case, tripping over basketball hoop and bracing the fall with an outstretched hand. Which one usually learns soon after bracing a fall with hands is not a good idea in most cases.”

I didn’t mean to trip over the basketball hoop. In fact, I may argue my sister moved it on me. She secretly came to my house from Ripon, moved it a few feet away from its normal location, and then patiently waited for me to walk backwards at that location.

And as I tripped, she knew my reflexes would cause me to use my left hand to break my fall, and then she could finish what she started nearly 35 years ago: damnation to my left wrist/hand/thumb.

Anyone with younger siblings probably understands this. They were put on this earth to mess with our lives.

My son, the owner of the basketball hoop my sister secretly moved on me, will soon understand this, too. His baby brother, born almost two weeks ago, hasn’t done anything to ruin his life, yet. But I’m guessing the baby will be blamed for something pretty quickly.

When that happens, I’ll have to tell him about my sister’s evil ways, just as his mother will tell him about her younger sisters’ malicious attempts to ruin her life. We older siblings all have to stick together.

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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, July 27, 2012.

World’s best birthday cake taunts those who can’t eat it

Every February my family and I go to my sister’s house in Ripon for my niece’s birthday party, and every year we get shafted.


Years ago it sort of upset me, but it’s been happening so long now that every year it’s become even more laughable. It’s reached the point where I have to share it with others, at the slight chance my sister might be offended and get mad at me.

My sister, Kelly, and her husband, Brian, hold a small party for their daughter, Samantha, and the only other ones who attend are my mother and stepfather and my grandparents. The party is fairly typical in that it consists of a potluck lunch, time for socialization, a gift opening and the singing of “Happy Birthday,” followed by cake and ice cream. The last part of this party is where the shafting occurs.

After we sing “Happy Birthday” to Samantha, she blows out the candles on the cake. The cake always looks delicious, as the frosting appears to be sweet yet not too heavy, and the decorating by the professional baker is enticing enough to make you want to put your face in the cake like a 1-year-old child and pig out.

But year after year, after the cake taunts us, it’s taken away and replaced by homemade cupcakes. Huh? The explanation is a bit complicated.

Years ago, I’m not sure exactly when, Kelly decided to hold two parties for Samantha – one with her family and one with Brian’s family. Neither family is particularly large, and one party with both sides used to be acceptable.

The separation forces our family to party first. We arrive around noon, and it’s over around 2:30 p.m. Brian’s family arrives about an hour after we leave.

Going first means the cake becomes only an object of lust for us. As we look at it and develop a want for it, it silently laughs at us, knowing we’re never going to taste its probably sweet, luscious outer coating and fluffy, moist chocolate or vanilla inside.

I honestly hope it suffers a horrible death when Brian’s family devours it.

We are relegated to cupcake eaters because I believe Kelly is embarrassed by her family – meaning us – so she separated the two sides to keep them from mingling from each other, thereby eliminating any chance we could humiliate her. In some ways, I don’t blame her. My mother and I both like to make people laugh, so we’re not afraid to bust out stupid humor or embarrass ourselves. If I were her, I’d probably want to separate the two families, too.

In separating them, though, she only gave us more fodder to potentially embarrass her. Need proof? You’re reading it.

And she will probably, too. I post this to my blogsite, allowing family members and friends who have no reason to subscribe to the paper to read my ramblings. A couple of months ago I would never have written this, purely out of the fact I wouldn’t want to embarrass or upset her, but I now know people need to chance it every once in a while and do crazy things like this.

I hope she realizes I’m doing so out of humor. When I’ve told others about it, they’ve laughed. I even had someone suggest I fill a syringe with alcohol next year and inject the cake with a little spice. It would probably be the first time any one has ever spiked a child’s birthday cake.

That’s a little too mean for my taste, though. Just because I can’t eat it, doesn’t mean I’ll ruin it for someone else. And who’s to say we won’t get the good cake someday. I wouldn’t want anybody ruining it for me.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Feb. 24, 2012.