click to visit larger image Epic of Sally Robertson, page 49 From The Fenworks |
Some of the biggest disagreements between me and my brother occurred shortly after getting home from school. Usually, they just revolved around him microwaving an enchilada with sauce all over it right when I was in the middle of my bowl of chocolate ice cream. Of course, he had a right to eat his enchilada. It was probably a better dietary choice in any case. But when you nuke enchilada sauce, there is nowhere in the house you can take your bowl of chocolate ice cream where the ice cream does not start to taste like enchilada sauce. Understandably, I thought, I did not want to eat enchilada sauce ice cream! This mostly just entailed raised voices and arguments over who should wait for whom.
Then, one day, he brought home a friend I didn’t like and I wanted an afternoon of quiet. Since I had come home first, I locked them both out. And action that, on ethical grounds and a love for my brother, that I regret. If I was my mom, I would have been so mad and disappointed at me, and she was. But for some reason, I still can’t bring myself to feel sorry for it. I have never done it since, and I would never do something like it do again. But on some level it still feels like I was very justified in my actions. Feelings aren’t always the best sources of motivation or morals, apparently.
It is possible that the brief moments when my brother and I had the reign of the house between us, after a long day of the stresses of institutional education, were a vital time of the day for us to release stress through aggression. But when I hear the stories of my friends and their siblings, we were pussycats by comparison! Hm. You know? Watching my cats, that’s a really bad metaphor to use. Who came up with that?
Epic of Sally Robertson: After School originally appeared on Drawing Contraption on 2013/09/03.