“I’m tellin’ Mom.”
Three little words with the power to transport us back in time, to the ages of about 5 to 13, back to juvenile threats and childish grievances against a sibling who had so clearly wronged us.
Of course, those three words were used at least once in the past week, as my older brother Kevin, now 50, and my sister-in-law, Pam, were in town, having joined my parents for the last week of their annual three-week escape to Key West.
Kev and I had matured long ago and set aside the bickering, baiting and fighting that once prompted the parental cliches of “Don’t make me turn this car around,” and turned the middle back seat of the car into a demilitarized zone during road trips. (“He touched me.” “He’s crossing the line.” “Gross.” “Mom, he’s bothering me.” “He’s staring at me.” “He just stuck his tongue out at me.”)
Apparently, though, that maturity evaporates a bit during a week of family togetherness.
Only the topics of our tattle-telling have changed. This time, the threat to “tell Mom” was against my dad, as Mom had placed us all under a gag order with regard to political discussions. Dad tried to break that rule, and was sternly warned that his wife of 53 years would be informed of his attempted provocation.
In our house, growing up, tattling was nearly as serious an offense as whatever perceived crime had been committed.
“Whoever tattles gets the same punishment as whoever committed the crime,” our parents would say. (It worked most of the time and at least kept their kids from becoming despised schoolyard snitches.)
There were other rules of our childhood that worked their way through a generation and were later used by Kevin and Pam on my nephews, Jack and Andrew, now 21 and 18.
For instance, in the event that two siblings have to split the last piece of cake, the last donut or the last of anything, then one splits the item and the other gets to choose their half. You would have thought Kevin and I, at the ages of 5 and 8, were tiny engineers given our exactitude. I kept waiting for my brother to bust out a slide rule and protractor whenever he was doing the cutting. But hey, it worked, and we each got exactly half.
That rule, however, never worked when it came time for Kevin and me to break the Thanksgiving wishbone. I always lost and I still, to this day, claim he cheated, maneuvering his bigger fingers above mine to gain the upper hand in the snap. But that’s water under the bridge (sort of – I’m still a little bitter).
But I can happily report that after nearly a full week together in Key West, all is well. Better than well, in fact. We’ve been to the beach. We’ve had drinks at the pool and some fantastic meals in our favorite spots. We’ve been on a sunset cruise and watched a play at the Truman LIttle White House.
I’ve been reminded over and over again in the past few weeks that my family simply rocks and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have the one that I do. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
(No matter what my mom thinks when I still roll my eyes like an angst-ridden teenager.)
