I turned thirty-two a few weeks ago. What I really wanted for my birthday was a pair of brand new Steve Madden leather boots from Nordstrom’s. What my parents got me was a brand new baby brother!
I have two brothers. Sean is twenty-seven and happily married to his nineteen-year-old wife Echo. (A very nice Christian girl with two mohawked Goth parents) Sean lives in Twin Peaks near my mountain community of Running Springs. He works in construction, loves it, writes screenplays in his spare time and is always willing to help me, his little sister whenever I call him up. That happens a lot.
Then there is Andy. Andy thought he was a cat when he was a child. He used to bite his teachers and other children. He’s thirty now and he has kind of grew out of the thinks he’s a cat biting stage. At least I think so. I have barely talked to him in eight years.
Eight years ago Andy told my Dad to go to hell on Father’s Day and I got into a screaming match with this privileged brother of mine who has lived in my parents’ house rent-free his whole life, has never helped with any of the chores and acts so entitled. Andy still lives in one of the upstairs guest rooms of my parent’s home. He is known to quit often fry up one of my parents Costco bought steaks at midnight (When he returns from his two day a week job at Dominos Pizza in Big Bear Lake) and leave the mess for my disabled Mother to clean up in the A.M. Andy has ADD, bad. I guess he can’t spare the attention to clean up after himself like an adult or a thirty-year-old man who still lives with his mama should?
At the beginning of the summer, my parents let a homeless man from our church move in with them. Normally I would say, oh what a nice thing to do but last year my parents had a problem with their renter turning into a full-on squatter in their rental house. This makes me deeply distrustful of people, especially sixty-year-old homeless people.
Perhaps I was being too quick to assume that Doug, our families homeless man and MY BRAND NEW BABY BROTHER! Was going to take advantage of my parents and never move out.
Doug began his life with my family living in the buildup underneath my parent’s home. My Dad calls this space his Man Cave and is working on turning it into a full-on apartment. My Mom is pretty sure he’s moving down there at some point and I think she’s kind of okay with that as long as he takes his slobby mess with him. He has to put in a pool table and a Jacuzzi but the place is pretty small and I have no idea how he can possibly fit in a bed and a pool table, leading me to think the pool table will have to be his bed at this point.
So at the beginning of the summer, Doug was living in the Man Cave. Then my parents decided to let him live in their fifth wheel. In July they went on vacation, camping in the Sierras and took the fifth wheel of course. So Doug moved into the guest room opposite Andy’s room. I’m pretty sure Andy thinks Doug is his butler (Not his baby brother) but I’ll get to that.
I came over to my parent’s house a few weeks ago, after my parents came back from their vacation. It was eight A.M. and Doug was sitting in my Dad’s easy chair in front of the flat-screen T.V. with my Dad’s favorite Siamese on his lap watching a movie surround sound and all. It appears I now have two brothers who live at home and watch T.V. all day. Okay, I do have to say, Doug has proven to be so helpful around the house and he really is a Godsend to my parents, who are both disabled and can’t do a lot of things around the house that two people in their early sixties, should be able to do.
For example, Andy’s bathroom ran out of toilet paper three weeks ago. Andy was too lazy to move his fat, fat ass downstairs to get the toilet paper for THREE FUCKING WEEKS! At thirty years old he walks with a cane because he is so overweight and lazy, but seriously, he’s too lazy to change his own toilet paper? Where does he poo? I know he does not eat vegetables (Only free steaks, like they grow on trees and not on cattle) so maybe he is REALLY backed up? Thank God Doug felt bad for Andy’s bowels (and my parent’s plumbing) and finally replaced Andy’s TP. That Doug; he might be a sixty-year-old homeless man living in my parent’s fifth wheel, but he is like the helpful brother I never had.
Comments
While it was an unconventional way for your parents to “adopt,” what a selfless thing for them to do! Glad he’s a blessing, and maybe it will rub off on your biological brother.
I’m glad your new brother is not creating more problems for your parents but is helping them instead. I do wish I had some magical words to help you help your brother, but, well, no. (I will admit I was giggling when I first started reading thinking your parents had another child!)
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