To David, on his birthday

Today is my little brother's 18th birthday, and I can't believe how time has gone. To help commemorate this day, a story:

My family always did road trips when I was growing up. We would go and buy sufficient amounts of candy, and Dad could pack anything into the trunk. Mom was in charge of music and always had good tunes. Our only problem was that we had a Toyota sedan. So David, Nickie, and I crammed into the back seat. Nickie and I always pulled rank and made David sit in the middle.

David was always a perfect angel as a child crammed into a small space for multiple hours...no. What child could be? I mean, even I, a child who was perfect almost all of the time, would get antsy on drives to Chicago. He was okay until his Gameboy battery ran out. After that, it was time for his imagination to run wild. And his young brain always decided upon one explicit goal: "I must annoy Jackie."

David would literally poke me for hours. I always tried to ignore it and stay engrossed in my Babysitter's Club book, but he was so darn persistent. He would poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, all while quietly giggling...now, a girl can only be so patient. After a few hours of this (or maybe a few minutes. You know how I tend to exaggerate) I knew I had to take action. Everyone has a breaking point. David found mine. So I threw him an elbow right in the sternum. David doubled over and moaned a pathetic moan. I tried to look innocent and explain my inner motivations.

You'll never guess who was punished.

It made perfect sense at the time. Now, I realize the error of my ways. No matter how gently one tries to elbow, it always hurts. There's no way to soften that blow.

The thing that was most frustrating during all of this was not that David was bothering me, it was that he was bothering me exclusively. He was sitting in between two sisters, both easily annoyed, and yet he focused his powers of irritation on me. Why, smaller David, why?