Friday, October 19, 2007

Only a brother

Ok, I just had to search my own blog for the word tomahawk to see if I'd written about this before. I have no idea why I'm thinking about this story right now It's one of those anecdotes that I use at family gatherings whenever the room falls silent. I'm the type of person that worries that someday they'll have to be on the Oprah show. I simply do not have an entire hour's worth of life expierences to share with the whole world. This story would definitely be in the running because then the audience would laugh & I would be loved the world over.

I always used to give my brothers birthday presents. They rarely reciprocated. I remember when I turned 16 all of my brothers came through & bought me presents. So I opened up the present from my older brother & it was a tomahawk. You know the face you make when you get a present that you don't like but you try to act grateful while mentally calculating just how long you will have to hold onto this present before you can donate it to the thrift store? I was beyond that. (I think I just broke the world record for the longest sentence ever written) I just didn't understand the thought process behind it "Hmm what should I get Sara? One of the t-shirts she's been hinting at? A CD? No, I think a tomahawk". His reasoning was that it was a gift that only a brother would give to me so I would always remember it. It's true, I always had it on the wall of my college apartments. We also had a silent agreement after that to not give each other birthday presents.

If you were on the Oprah show, what stories would you share??

7 comments:

Allie said...

Awww... sweet in a slightly disturbing way.

I'd watch Oprah if you were on it.

Unknown said...

OMG! Well...at least you were well-armed in case of an intruder! :) Oprah would be lucky to have you! And don't let her interrupt you the way she always does. That's one of the things I can't stand about her. Her guest is mid-sentence and she's always got to interject something. Ugh.

I'd tell my Dixie Carter story! :)

Stacy said...

I want a tomahawk. Of course, I can't wait to get married so I can finally start buying swords at the Renaissance Festival since I'll have a man to blame them on.

"Yes, he drags one of those home from every Ren Fest he goes to! It's so obnoxious! I keep telling him if he brings home one more weapon, I'm giving them to Goodwill."

And husband will be ever-patient and will not give me away.

Trish Ryan said...

That sounds like such a brotherly thing to do! One Christmas, my brother gave us all omlette pans and spatulas. None of us understood why, and he didn't explain. You're right, though, it's years of retelling these stories at family gatherings that prepares us for Oprah :)

LEstes65 said...

I love presents like that. So off the wall that they turn into their own special story.

If I were on Oprah - she'd kick me off. I have TOO many stories to tell. How do you pick? Would I tell about the time I almost drown at Jones Beach in NY? Would I tell about the phone call that rocked my world when my birth-mom called me 2 days after my 20th birthday? Would I tell her about being one of the only female bouncers in Boston? Would I tell her any of my myriad of stories where I sang to an audience of my sister and the club employees? Would I tell her about how my blended step-family of 3 boys and 3 girls made me hate the lie that was 'The Brady Bunch'?

Too many to pick from.

Alyssa Goodnight said...

I'd talk about the guy I met in high school that took me out my senior year and told me he was a psychic and that we were destined to get married in five years. It's a whole long thing.

My husband (not the psychic) and I celebrated the anniversary of this weird prediction.

Anonymous said...

Tomahawk, huh? Well, at least you have an accessory if you ever decide to dress up as Pocahontas!

One year, my brother told me that he didn't want any presents. He told me he had been bad and only deserved hard biscuits and coal for Christmas. So I made biscuits and left them out a week so they were nice and hard. And I bought a bag of charcoal. Funnily enough, he never asked for hard biscuits and charcoal again!