Of Brothers and Weddings

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Of Brothers and Weddings

By Sierra L. | July 11, 2012

One of my cousins got married last weekend, and my Dad and my 12 year old brother J flew to Iowa to celebrate with them. They returned home last night. This morning over breakfast, we asked J for the wedding low-down and he replied, “It was pretty fun, except we never got to throw anything at the bride.”

Mom asked for clarification. “THROW things at the bride?”
“Yeah,” my brother replied, “Like birdseed or flowers or rice. They didn’t do that.”

He looked despondent for a moment, then looked up at me hopefully. “Si-si, when you get married, can we throw things at you?”
“Of course you can,” I replied. I ought to have known better than to say yes without specifying precisely what they would be throwing.

From there, the conversation took off. My nine year old brother G was also sitting at the table, along with my 14 year old brother -I- and my 17 and 13 year old sisters (M and Z). “Lets throw marshmallows!” G exclaimed.
“Yeah!” agreed -I-. “Jumbo ones! You can really whip them!”

“I wanna use a marshmallow gun,” replied J. “They go further that way. Plus, we can set up barricades to hide behind!”

M got this mischievious grin on her face. “Lets leave the marshmallows on the sidewalk first so they warm up a bit.” Mom nearly fell over she was laughing so hard, envisioning gooey sticky marshmallows sticking to my hair and shoulders, and refusing to be removed.

“Whoa, not so fast!” I inserted, worried. They were having too much fun with this idea. “If you guys try that, I’ll sneak out a back exit.”
J would have none of that. “Oh no you won’t, we’ll have all the exits locked down. You’ll never escape! Muahahaha!”

Just then, my sleepy 5 year old brother J2 slowly walked into the kitchen and climbed into his seat at the table. J turned to him and asked, “So, J2, do you have any ideas of what we should throw at Si-si?”
This evil smile lit up my dear darling little brother’s face as he looked at me. Then, firmly, he answered, “Socks and garbage.” And picked up his egg sandwich and took a bite.

Once everyone stopped laughing, things got really crazy. One brother suggested compost and rotten veggies, then another added “How about ketchup? We could squirt it!” I’m pretty sure I heard the idea of chainsaws tossed about too.
“No no no,” a different brother interrupted, “We need something we already have a lot of.”
J2 looked up again from his sandwich again and suggested, “Sawdust?”
Z entered the conversation here. “Yeah! We could wrap it in little tulle bags and hand it out! Si-si can start working on that now!”

Oh lordy.

Finally, J asked, “What if they run and get away too fast?”
14 yr old -I- replied matter-of-factly, “That’s what the potato canon is for.”