My gullible little sister
When I was five my sister was just two. My bedroom at the time doubled as an overflow for my dad's library. My dad had but one rule: "Don't touch daddy's books". Presumably, his idea of showing who’s in charge was to leave me alone with his books and hope that his authority alone was sufficient to act as a shield for his precious books. This wishful thinking on his part was insufficient to prevent me from taking his books and opening them spread-eagled on the bed. It took a while and many sore buttocks to sink in, but I soon learned not to play with my dad's books.

My sister on the other hand was the little angel of the family. Unlike me, she'd never get into trouble. But I made up in my lack of angelicness by being the cunning one. I hatched a plan that would achieve the following:

• My dad's books would be removed from the shelf and played with.
• My sister would hopefully lose her status as the angel of the family.
• This would fulfil my role in the time-honoured tradition of older brothers teasing their younger sisters.

Basically, I'd just persuade my sister to play with the books and then get my parents to witness the crime. So when we were next sitting on my bed, I went up to her and whispered:

"Touch Daddy's books"

She soon complied, and I would shout:

"Mum! Mum! sistaspakkalass is playing with Daddy's books".

Result!

This went on for a few more times. Each time, my sister would become more wary of my motives, but my loud imperative whispering voice had a strangely hypnotic effect on her.

"Touch Daddy's books"

"Touch Daddy's books"

But one day, her resistance would build up to the point where she would not move. No matter howmany times I tried to plant that suggestion inside her head, she did not lay a finger on my father’s books. I kept whispering the three words to her over and over again. My mum soon came in and caught me in the act. All of a sudden, all my attempts to become the little angel of the family came undone. My parents realised just how devious I can be. This story is still told to the present day at family gatherings.

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Fast-forward a few years. When I was 9 (and she 5), my sister was going through a phase where she wanted a younger sibling of her own (you know, the "Mum, can we have another baby?" phase). My mum had recently told both of us how babies are made. So one day, I hatched an evil plan. In order to give my sister false hope, I told her that my mum was going to do it with a man in the street and this would eventually lead to my sister having a younger sibling of her own. Her eyes lit up. She believed me. She even went over to our mother for confirmation. Oops… However, my mum was more impressed with the ridiculousness of my suggestion than she was annoyed with me planting false hope inside my sister or the suggestion she’d do it with “a man in the street”.

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The downside to all this was that this raised my hopes other kids might just be as gullible as my sister was. This however was not the case, and in a way, that could count as some sort of Karmatic retribution.

But she grew out of it. I only just scraped through my undergraduate degree, and she's now doing her PhD. But even so, the moment I was proudest of her was when she defeated my idiot-proof answering-machine. Nowadays, we get on well with eachother and visit eachother on occasion.

Length? The difference between brothers and sisters.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 29 Dec 2008, 14:54, Reply)