Ugly Brother -

Coming from a large family it’s amazing how much we are alike. I’ve been told genetics have a huge part to do with how we look, sound and act and even what our personalities trait may be. But there are a lot of things that are learned and are the results of our own choices. What we do with the circumstances we are placed in will dictate the outcome of our happiness and the directions in which we progress. I have three brothers and despite the fact we all have made our individual choices there are a lot of similarities between way we act and function in certain situations. I use to think they were pretty ugly until I realized I looked just like them. One day I got a call from my older brother who said he couldn’t do it anymore – I wanted to know what the “it” was. He said, “I can’t be nice to all these idiots that think I’m you.” Now this is hard to take because he is eight years older than I am – this is kind of like the story I told about my head and that I look ten years older than I am. One day I got a call from an acquaintance of mine that I don’t see very often that was a little offended. I’ve offended a lot of people in my life especially when I played sports, but I had no idea what he was talking about. He called to give me a hard time because I was so rude. He'd seen me at a local store and waved, apparently I didn’t wave back. He thought about it for a couple of days and it started to bug him. Now this is someone I actually like and would have waved because I wanted to, not just to be cordial. I started to apologize and then asked when it happened. He told me and I realized it was when I was out of town at a funeral more than a hundred miles away. I told him my excuse and who it most likely had been – then I asked him to do me a favorite, next time it happens walk up to me and slap me across the side of the head. I believe this is the perfect solution! First if it's me and I’m that rude then I deserved it and if not it would pay back one of my brothers for and the abuse they gave me over the years – either way it would make a good story for the next reunion. Now when we are all together you can tell us apart – I’m taller and better looking than the others and the one just older than me has more hair. The two oldest don’t have any more hair but they would have a big lump on their rear ends because of how money they have in their wallets. Now we all must have OK personalities because none of us married ugly women and for the most part our kids are cute. For being cousins some of them could be mistaken for brothers and sisters. Most of them have one thing in common they’re embarrassed by their dad’s. All of us are pretty competitive and we use to play sports together – when the kids started getting older it was them against the old farts. The bigger and stronger they got the weaker and slower we became and forget about being able to jump anymore, so we had to use other tactics to compete. Now they think it dirty, but it’s just that we know how to throw them off their game. But this is a little off the subject. The reality is that my brothers are great guys, men, friends and someone if I’m mistaken for is all right by me. They have become some of my idols, and someday I hope to be more like each of them especially the lump on their rear ends.