Over Two Cookies
As far back as I can remember there has been a constant fight over food between my brother, sister and I. Bottomless pits, all of us are. And unless you hid what was yours, you could always expect one of the other two to eat it.
I remember one year, when we were all still living in the suburban Philadelphia house I grew up in, my sister hid a multitude of mini M&Ms in an antique jug high up on one of the shelves in the pantry. She hid them mostly from my brother, and after a few days shared her secret with me, revealing her plentiful stash. “Shhhhh, don’t tell him,” she’d said, making me promise I wouldn’t. Of course, my brother eventually found those mini M&Ms and consumed a great many, causing a melodramatic argument.
Now that we are all adults in our mid to late twenties—I myself pushing thirty—things are no different at all. This July 4th weekend and well into the coming week, all three of us are home under one roof again. And already the food fight has begun.
I don’t know why it is that I do it. Out of the three of us, as the oldest, I should be capable of showing the most restraint. Only, I’m not capable of doing any such thing. Especially when it comes to my brother’s ravenous appetite. It incenses me to think that the barely-recognizable tanned, muscle-bound, health-conscious person that my brother has become since I’ve been living in New York still has what it takes to move about the kitchen like a giant vacuum, sucking up whatever food lies in his path. My vegan cookies were no exception.
Honestly, I’m ashamed to admit that it didn’t take me long to notice. I’m like a hawk, zeroing in on what’s mine and circling overhead, keeping constant watch. I know I shouldn’t be like this with food, but when my brother is around, old habits die hard. I walked into the kitchen and right away saw that the package of cookies had obviously been disturbed from where I had previously left it.
“Did someone eat some of my cookies?” I asked, carrying the package to the top of the steps so that the rest of the animals in the family room below could see exactly what I was talking about.
My brother looked up at me with that look that says “oops,” without having to say the word at all. “I did,” he said. “I ate two of them.” This, he says as he’s eating a bowl of ice cream and two graham crackers with Cool Whip. What could he have possibly needed two of my vegan cookies for?
“But you’re not even vegan,” I argued. “What do you even need to be eating these for?”
“I’ll buy you some more,” he said, in a tone that meant the argument was over.
“Why do you need to start an argument over two cookies?” my father piped in, attempting to shame me.
“I’m very angry,” I said as I turned to go back upstairs, stomping my feet on each step as I went, for added emphasis. Then the dog—the high-functioning-retarded family golden retriever—followed me. Oh, good, I thought. Someone’s on my side. We’re like a team.
This is not the proper reaction one might expect from someone who will be thirty in nine months. I know it. And yet, I can’t control it.
The thing is, my brother won’t buy me more cookies. He’ll come home, bring his dirty laundry and suck up all the food; and then he’ll go back to his apartment, his job, his friends and his life, and I won’t hear from him unless he randomly happens to need something from me—like a place to stay in New York when he comes up to run the half-marathon.
But then, am I so different?
Here I sit, home to visit with my family. Only, I’m locked upstairs in the guest bedroom with my laptop, journal and two books—reading and writing incessantly, surrounded by the clean laundry I just finished earlier today and the hordes of vegan sweets I want to keep hidden from my brother.