During the past month, in addition to buying a boatload of Christmas and Chanukah presents, I also shopped for the two January birthdays. Because of some pretty good sales, I was actually finished shopping for the birthdays as well, and I even managed to get them wrapped and everything.
And so of course, when I brought the Christmas presents down, I managed to bring all of #3's birthday gifts down, too. And naturally, he spent the rest of the morning telling everyone that he'd had "the best Christmas ever!".
Now besides making me feel like an idiot, #4 did not miss that #3's pile of loot was considerably higher than his own, with predictable results. In other words, he was simply devastated. His life, he pointed out, lay in ruins.
However, I managed to save the day by showing him the GI Joe I won on ebay. New in box, it's a U.S. Marine commemorative Joe which was wonderfully underpriced, and I bought it for #4's birthday in March. So, in order to keep the peace (and not have my eardrums rupture) I showed him the Marine with the accessories and told him that as soon as it arrived, he could have it.
This pleased him more than you can imagine. He'd never heard of GI Joe before, and so I explained that it was a 12- inch doll, sort of like the dollar store ones only cooler. He walked all around the house grinning, and telling everyone that I'd bought him a Marine GI Joe. By the third trip around the house the brothers were, as usual, ready to strangle him with his own tongue. Since #2 and 3 threatened to hurt him if he talked about it once more, he went to find #1.
"Guess what?" he said to #1. "Mama bought me a GI Joe!". #1 agreed that was a really nice thing.
"Yep," said #4. "It's going to be mine." #1 was doing something else and so just nodded and said that it was.
"Yes, all mine. 12 inches of Marine, and it's all for me!".
#1 suddenly had urgent business elsewhere. I think he broke something.
When Poe ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
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