"Don't go in the kitchen...."

Weekly writing assignment from Mama Kat: Write about something mean you did to a sibling growing up.

First of all, let me clarify that I am NOT mean. Really, I’m not. But at times, I feel that it’s my right as the oldest sibling to shake things up a bit and scare the pants off my younger brothers.

Okay, so maybe it was only once. But you better believe I made that one time count.

When I was fifteen, one of my neighbors was at the house watching a scary movie with me. (This is before I got to be such a wuss and quit watching scary movies.) My brother, Sean, was probably eight or so, and he and his friend thought they were big and bad enough to watch the horror flick, too. I told him it was a bad idea. I told him he’d have nightmares. But he insisted. He was determined to watch. And to my surprise, he didn’t flinch once during the whole movie. He didn’t seem scared at all. I had to fix that.

Once the movie ended, Sean and his friend went to his room to play, while Anni and I plotted our very own little house of horrors.

First, we took out a butcher knife and covered it in a nasty mix of ketchup and maple syrup (to look like blood, of course.) We left it laying on the kitchen counter and smeared some more of our sticky, sweet, tomato based blood all around it.

Then, we hid in my step-mom’s office and used the separate phone line to call the house and torture my brother. When he answered, I said (in my raspiest, scariest voice) something along the lines of, “Don’t go in the kitchen.” It took several calls to get him sounding a little shaky. By the time he finally made his way to the “crime scene”, Anni was sprawled across the floor, pretending to be dead. She must have been pretty convincing. Sean and his friend FREAKED out.

At first it was hilarious. But once he started crying, I felt like crap. I was sure that I had scarred him for life.

Luckily there was no permanent damage to his psyche.

And believe it or not, I never did anything like that again.