This past weekend, Tufts welcomed the parents of all the students to come bask in the glow of athletic sportsmanship and academic prosperity, hopefully justifying the $45,000 annual chunk of change for an education in Medford (no easy task).
Normally, this would be just another weekend for a Tufts townie because my parents could basically go grocery shopping at Jumbo and don't need a grand tour of the campus, but it provided a great chance for them to meet the parents of my housemates with a nice dinner.
This situation always makes me somewhat anxious, because at some point, without fail, the fact that I'm the youngest of my family will be the main topic of conversation. Like an 800-pound polar bear, this acts as the perfect ice-breaker because my being the "baby" of the family has yielded some wacky (and somewhat disturbing) stories of sibling rivalry with my two older brothers.
My brothers seem to think that I was by far the most spoiled in the family, even dubbing me "baby Jesus" one Christmas when it took me close to an hour opening up presents. They have always maintained that they didn't get half the things that I've been given, and for many years now, my response has been along the lines of "deal with it," which is a sure-fire way to catch an a**-kicking.
Luckily for me, my brothers were never ones for physical punishment. They knew that bumps and bruises on Petie meant trouble from the parents, so they were smart enough to instead leave their bruises on my psyche. That way, the damage probably won't show up until a therapy session when I'm 30, and by that point, there's no way my parents can ground them.
One story that comes to mind happened on a snowy night when I was about 10 years old. My parents were out for the night, leaving me with my brother Craig and his friend, and Christmas had just given me a new Huffy bike, three Champion hoodies, a Triple Fat Goose jacket and some BK Knights (the pimp shoes that light up), so resentment was at an all-time high.
At approximately midnight, my brother and his friend came screaming into my room, pulled me out of bed and stuffed me in to my oldest brother's empty hockey bag. They then proceeded to carry me downstairs, out the front door, across the street putting me, your beloved townie, into a snow-covered thorn bush. I was forced to pry open the bag's nearly frozen zipper, negotiate through the thorns and snow, hustle back across the street using the bag as a poncho and beg them to let me back into the house, all while only wearing a pair of sick Ninja Turtles underwear. Barring the close call with frostbite, there was no physical evidence of this despicable act, a crime of which even O.J. would be envious.
If the hockey bag story seemed over the top, then you should stop reading now before this next one. I was a seventh grader at my brother Craig's graduation party, and my brother and his friends had a history of picking me up by my boxers or stuffing me in trash barrels. This time, they lured me down to the basement where all the cool, old kids were hanging out, saying they thought I was the man and that they were done putting me in the trash.
Unbeknownst to me, their true plan was to stick me in the dog's cage and throw pieces of ham and cheese at me, all while yelling "freak" and "golden child." This type of story is usually relegated to movies like "Hostel" or "A Clockwork Orange," but I see it more like the show "The Wonder Years" only if it were filmed in Medford and was on HBO.
Looking back on it, I'm glad these things happened to me. As detrimental as they were to my self-esteem, these stories helped build character and my townie persona. I mean, how the hell can I be embarrassed when, at one point in my life, I was actually a sideshow and people were showering me with cold cuts?
Also, for every story like those ones, there's a story of how my brothers have helped me; like the first time I ever drank alcohol and threw up on my bedroom rug on Christmas Eve, and my oldest brother helped me clean it at 6:30 a.m. by opening up his Polo Sport Cologne present that I bought him to dilute the smell. Without these experiences I would not be the townie I am today, so I am thankful for that.
However, I will never admit that I'm spoiled, ever. I've got to go, though - my parents just dropped off the car and my laundry and some money.
Pete McKeown is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at peter.mckeown@tufts.edu.
