5000 ways to torture me.

I've already mentioned that I grew up around a bunch of boys. Two of the worst were my brothers, Kyle and Ty. I'm going to tell you a little story of the ways they used to have fun. Unfortunately, at my expense.

My oldest brother had a really bad habit of mocking me. He would do something to make me mad, or cry and then he'd mock me. It used to make me so mad I wanted to kill him. No really, I wanted the boy dead, 6 feet under, cold, embalmed so there was no chance of him ever returning.

Here's how it would play out; I'd be playing in my room with my stuffed animals which I loved more than life itself. Kyle would enter my room and begin speaking to me normally. Then he'd start gesturing with one of my critters. Something about the sight of their ears jiggling or their legs flopping would somehow get him all excited and the next thing I knew, I was screaming at him to be nice and stop hurting my friends. This would only add fuel to the fire and he would proceed to punch my stuffed animals in the face and choke them and slam them onto the floor like he had just scored a touchdown. In turn, I would start crying because my poor bunny couldn't possibly survive such a terrible beating. That's when Kyle would start mocking me. He'd repeat whatever I was saying in a really annoying baby voice and make it sound like he was crying.
My eyes would turn red and steam would be shooting out of my ears and I'd try to claw him to death but he was always faster and could get out of the way just in the nick of time. That made me even madder.

Another trick the guys would use was during treat time. I was always trying to do sweet things for them so they'd be nice to me. We had treat time where everyone could have a root beer float or a snack. I'd make the worlds greatest float or bake them a splendid cake in my easy bake oven and the guys would inhale whatever it was in about 15 seconds. Then they would tell me that whatever I had lovingly made was terrible and to go try again and make another. I never caught on that they liked what I had made and wanted another. They just let me believe that it was yucky.

My other brother, Ty had one sentiment for me that I heard for many years. It went like this: 'I hate you, I wish you would die.' If I heard it once I heard it a million times. My mom would tell him that he didn't really mean to say something so awful, but he always said it was exactly what he meant.

Out on the farm we used to take turns pulling each other around on a wooden pallet behind our riding lawn mower. Hey, when you're in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do you get inventive. Anyway, when it was my turn to ride, my brothers situated the back wheel of the mower right on top of a big wet, juicy cow patty. When they popped the clutch, guess who was yelling and who got a taste of cow patty? They loved to do that kind of thing to me.

When they went away to college I was understandably releived. I missed them, but at least I wasn't being tortured. A strange thing happened when they returned home. They acted like human beings! They didn't immediately start in on picking on me. Ty actually gave me a hug! Once the paramedics finished shocking me back to life, I actually got to sit down with my brother and have a nice conversation. He was interested in what I was doing. How strange....but nice. Kyle took me shopping and bought me treats!

After about 15 more years, I decided to trust them and started enjoying their company. Now we have a great time together. If anyone else is with us when we go out on the town, they're pretty much left to their own devices because we are too busy hootin' and hollerin' to notice they're there. We're just like the three stooges except we quit hitting one another a long time ago. 
It's nice.