Push-Pops, Meal of the Gladiator

Things I learned from this blog entry

-My art is bad and I should feel bad

-coloring with markers was a bad idea

-drawing under the influence of caffeine is a really bad idea because I can’t control my own damn hands

-Stop drawing small, Alexandria, you fuckwit

-I will color with colored pencils next time because I remembered that I’m actually kind of good at using those even if it does take longer

-other than that, fuck me. I have to start somewhere.

I was eight years old, it was summer vacation, and I was bored out of my goddamn mind. 

Sure, I was finally free of the oppressive monotony of the 1st grade and I didn’t have any homework to do (not that I ever turned in any homework when school was actually in session) but I was also lacking the routine companionship of my elementary school peers. I didn’t live near by any of my friends from school and due to my childish tendency to accidentally set any and all electrical devices on fire, I wasn’t allowed to use the telephone to call anyone up and make plans. I also couldn’t ask my mother to dial the number of a friend’s house and set up a play-date for me because she was at work. This left me no choice but to attempt some level of diplomacy with the other life-force that was lurking in the room contiguous to mine: My 11 year old brother, Etienne.

Etienne was an ominous being that menaced in the depths of the darkest room of our apartment, which reeked perpetually of his own flatulence from many consecutive days spent eating Twinkies while playing Nintendo 64. His obscure summertime existence led me to believe that he was less my brother and more of something that dwelled within myth or a personal nightmare. Perhaps this is was his precise intention. Perhaps he wanted to forsake his humanity in hopes of becoming a darker force that was immune to falling asleep past 12am and receiving punishment from my mother for any wrong-doing in order to efficiently play Super Smash Brothers ad infinitum. I even had a particular quote of his from a few days prior that validated my speculations.

But I couldn’t let my fears get the better of me. My sanity was at stake. So I quit loitering in the hallway, entered his lair, and made an innocent request of the beast.

Forlorn, I returned to the hallway. I began to weigh my options. I could return to my brother’s room and pester him until he allowed me to play, but then I’d simply be asking for a one-sided boxing match. This summer was not going well at all. And that’s when I heard something promising from my television. The familiar exaggerated screams complimented by comical explosions and 1960’s pop and jazz; Tom and Jerry was on. Hell yeah, motherfucker. Then, something else most striking occurred to me: I could amplify this afternoon Hanna and Barbara experience with sugar because there was ice cream in the freezer.

And so I promptly journeyed to the kitchen to seek out my prize. I popped open the freezer and grabbed the box of Flintstone’s Push-pops. There was one left and it was orange flavor. The best flavor. Try to name something better than this. Times up. You can't. You lose.

My brother wouldn’t care since he’d long since selfishly commandeered the entire box of Twinkies from the pantry. In fact, every time my mother bought Twinkies, he made it his mission in life to make certain that I never received any. Not simply because he had an undying love for processed yellow pastries, but because he was also a gigantic miserly asshole that enjoyed watching the impoverished suffer. So now it was my turn to indulge. I put the empty box back in the freezer, because well, I was eight years old and didn’t know any better (Actually, no. Never mind. I still do this with cereal boxes and it drives my mom crazy) and merrily shut the freezer door and began peeling off the wrapper of my ice cream.

As I made my way down the yellowing linoleum kitchen floor towards my room, my brother’s door abruptly swung open and regurgitated the brooding figure of a Nintendo-addicted 11 year old boy into the hallway. He quickly passed me on his way to the kitchen.

I heard the freezer pop open again behind me, accompanied with an anguished grunting sound. I paid it no mind. Tom and Jerry had already started. But my efforts to return to my bedroom were quickly thwarted.

“YOU ATE THE LAST PUSHPOP?!”

I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound of his cryptic bellows echoing through the kitchen. His agony paralyzed me. I could not run away. I could only twist my head around to face the oncoming disaster.

My brother pushed me into the kitchen floor and I bumped my head on an open cabinet corner.

I grabbed the part of my head where the cabinet had struck and began to wail like a newborn. This is when Etienne reverted back from beast to older brother, realized the horrible thing he had just done to his 8 year old sister over at popsicle and tried his best to console me. He stressed how sorry he was and begged me not to tell mom. He eventually appeased me by allowing me to play video games with him if I promised not to tattle. So we went back to his room.

            He began setting up 2-player mode on Super Smash Brothers and handed me the 2^nd controller, which I grabbed with my single available hand. I began fumbling around with the joystick in a fairly sad attempt to select Pikachu.

“If you want to play, you have to use two hands, stupid.”

He was right. My efforts to play one-handed would be inevitably fruitless. And my head was already feeling somewhat better so I removed my other hand.

I began crying and screaming twice as loud as before because holy shit my brother was a goddamned murderer. We had to call mom.

Mom had to come back early from work to take me to the hospital.

And she was mad as hell.

Thankfully, the doctors said I would be okay. It was only a surface wound and an X-ray wasn’t even necessary. Even so, I was placed into this strange contraption that the doctors claimed was only needed to further examine my head.

In reality, they had to staple my scalp back together.

And the following day, my mom hired a babysitter.