The Most Likely Suspect

It may not be fair to place the blame for The Man's prankster ways on his big brother but since he IS the older of the two he surely has to take some extra responsibility for it. Besides, he's the best at telling the stories. If you want a clever prank, something that might take hours, days even weeks to reach fruition, something that maybe only you being in on the secret will ever truly enjoy the sort of thing that wriggles and tickles your insides to the point of giddy laughter, Big Brother is your man. If you want to scare the shit out of someone  you go for The Man. Putting them both together isn't recommended for amateurs.

Really, it's a shame that you can't hear about this stuff while sitting around the campfire pit in Big Brother's back yard, as he's a master story teller. The pair of them, brothers the way they mean when they say "like brothers", become sparkly-eyed school boys and The Man can even be brought to tears when Big Brother gets a really good story going. Sometimes furniture must be moved around in the telling and you never ever want him to stop. But, you can't hear it from him. You're stuck with me so make do.

I began to get an inkling of their devilish ways when The Man and I were first seeing one another. He lived with Big Brother and I would often hear the horror stories from one or the other of them. It became obvious that if I didn't make myself clear I could easily become wrapped up in their endless cycle of merriment.

The Man came scurrying back to bed one night snorting and guffawing loudly. "What? What's so funny?" I asked him, already laughing.

"I," he gasped and giggled "I put anbesol on Big Brother's toothbrush!" he grinned naughtily.

"Why would you DO that?" I asked him in amazement, my laughter gone.

"It's funny. He'll be brushing his teeth and then his whole mouth will go numb and he'll blubber toothpaste everywhere!"

"Won't he be angry? What if he gets really sick from it?"

"Nah, we get each other all the time. It's harmless." he assured me.

"Just so you know, I am not a good sport about stuff like that."

"Oh you're not, huh?"

"No. You know how I hate it that you sneak up on me all the time."

"ahahahaahah!" he laughed "yeah, you always freak out but it takes you so long to jump! You look right at me, see who I am and THEN you jump three feet in the air."

"It's NOT FUNNY, I can't help it! I swear to you, if you pull that prank shit on me I will be seriously pissed off." I gave him my most serious of all serious faces and slowly he sobered up.  "And quit sneaking up on me!"

"Most of the time I'm not even trying to sneak up on you, you know."

"HA! Your giant lumbering self just suddenly becomes silent ninja man, eh? And what the fuck does that mean: "Most of the time"?"

"My "giant lumbering self"?" he was laughing again.

***** APPROXIMATELY ONE WEEK LATER*****

Big Brother, The Man and I are sitting out on the deck while I smoke and they drink beer when Big Brother randomly says "Hey, you never put anbesol on my toothbrush, did you?" The man turned red with laughter right away, nodding and tearing up.

"Yeah, man. That was me." he finally managed to say. I sat stiff in my lawn chair, positive that the shit was about to hit the fan.

"Really, it was you?" he calmly and wonderingly asked The Man again.

"Who else would it be?" I asked, unsure where this was going.

"I thought it was Chicken." he was referring to his doll-faced spring chicken of a girlfriend. "So I anbesolled HER toothbrush. Man oh man was she pissed." The Man and I were nearly falling out of our lawn chairs we were laughing so hard. The thought of poor unsuspecting Chicken going in the bathroom to brush her teeth one morning and having her mouth go numb was the most hysterical thing that could have come from The Mans seemingly simple practical joke.

"Why would you think it was Chicken? I can't believe you did that to her! Of course it was The Man!" I added between hoots and hollers "Isn't The Man the most likely suspect?"

"I don't know. She was mad at me, so I figured she did it" he was laughing too. "She just wouldn't admit she'd done it so I had to teach her a lesson."