QotD: Family Circus

Share a story about your sibling(s) or a family member from when you were a kid. 
Submitted by Jenny Marie.

Well, I never had any siblings.  What I had were cousins.  Our parents skillfully managed to dump us all at our grandmother's house at the same time for a couple of weeks many summers, so we grew up with each other and were all quite close.  Every time we get together, we still laugh at some of the stuff we used to do.

Individually, we were not especially bad kids, but when we got together, we could be pretty rotten.  I blame this all on jenifer.  She was usually the oldest cousin present (we have one who is older, but she was often not around) and, thus, our ringleader.

One time, our parents for some reason sent us off to a children's event unsupervised.  I have no idea what they were thinking, but there was going to be a Christmas movie and then Santa would appear and so forth, and they took us and left us with no supervision other than the paid chaperones at the event.  That was a mistake on their part.

I don't remember now what the movie was, but I do remember that there were 4 of us, and that was trouble.  Three of us were girls, and one of us was our crazey cousin Josh.  Josh was possessed of the kind of genius crazey that constantly had him in trouble with all manner of authority figures, but to us he was awesome. 

We were restive through the entire event, if I recall correctly.  We made loud, obnoxious comments to spoil the Christmas cheer of all around us.  Josh began peppering those in front of us with our refuse.  I don't like to point fingers, but I believe Jen joined him.  Jen's little sister, whom we all affectionately called Gwee, may have as well, and I am fairly certain Gwee did sprinkle people with the icy backwash from her soda.  Note how I fault the other three and take no blame myself.

The chaperones came over to give us a stern warning.  But this, my friends, was in the dark days before cell phones, so they could not have reached our parents, who were no doubt all out getting drunk, if they'd tried.  So, a stern warning was all they could really do, and it had no discernible effect on our behavior.

Gathering steam, we prepared for the arrival of Santa.  When the other children cheered, we booed.  Santa began handing out gifts, allegedly at random.  We received none (how very odd), so we instantly began yelling, "Santa's a gyp--Santa's a gyp," which I must say confounded the poor man.  In all his years, I doubt any child had called him such names.  Eventually, the chaperones herded us out into the lobby, but I daresay we confounded them as well.  I don't think they were prepared for children so bent on making other children cry and ruining Christmas for the assembled.  I daresay they were not prepared to meet The Dark Side in the smiling faces of four children that December day.

At some point, our parents did return, as we were sulking in the lobby and plotting our takeover of the popcorn machine.  We put on our angel faces and escaped before the chaperones could gather words to tell our parents just how horrid we were.  It was many, many years before our parents found out. 

Ah, good times, good times. 

It's funny, because I was thinking about my own childhood in light of the recent behavior of Alec Baldwin.  I was told I was a rude, thoughtless little pig a few times.  I was also told I was a little shit, a lazey little shit, an ungrateful little shit, a know-it-all little shit, etc.  The thing is that the people telling me those things were quite right at those moments; I was sometimes a rude, thoughtless little pig, I was most certainly a little shit.  I would dispute the lazey part, but I was without question a know-it-all little shit.  I think the above story likely demonstrates that.  My parents and/or the chaperones would not have been out of line to tell me so.  I probably also needed a good, swift kick in the ass, but that's another kettle of fish.