Why my sister is the “Evil One” and my first joke I ever told.

I learned that at an early age I had developed a sense of humor. Sit back and allow me to paint a picture for you. I was about 5 years old when I realized something was different about my younger sister. She is a year and 10 months younger than I so she would have been about 3 years old. It was a fourth of July weekend holiday. I was still new to the planet but I could tell that something good was about to happen. My father was a truck driver and wasn’t home very much so it was one of those quintessential family times in the household.

It was an early morning and my mother told me to take my sister and go play in the backyard. I still wasn’t afraid of my younger sister…but things were about to change. We lived in a brick house on the south side of Chicago… so the yard was small but had some flowers, a warm sunny day and beautiful. I took my sister down the back porch and sat her in the grass. She was lovely in her little white dress. Out of nowhere a small flock of white butterflies started to fly in amongst the flowers and then one landed on my sister’s cheek. You couldn’t have painted a better Norman Rockwell scenario, simply magical.
The magical moment came to a halt as my sister looked into the palm of her hand, stared at the butterfly that landed there…and splat! My sister squashed the poor beastie. She examined her hand and I assumed noticed the sparkly pollen left by the deceased insect…which she then showed me in her hand and said, “Pretty”.

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I was a bit shocked and proceeded to tell her “no” and that it was wrong but I never got the chance. She proceeded to run around the yard, applauding and screaming with glee, in a manic fashion. Have you seen the flight prowess of a butterfly? They never stood a chance. 5 to 10 butterflies bit it in but a few seconds. In my mind’s eye I can hear the butterflies screaming, “Save yourselves… I thought Bob said this would be safe!...Has anyone seen Frank? Where the fuck is Frank?!” As they bobbed and weaved erratically into my sister’s flailing arms of death.

My father appeared on the back porch due to my sister’s yelps and saw what she was doing. He immediately raced down to the yard and scooped her up and saying “no”. Sis doesn’t like to hear the word no. While he tried to explain to her that she shouldn’t kill things…his frustration built up and he finally told her, “You killed a butterfly…no Butter for you for a week!” At the time I didn’t know that before becoming a truck driver my father was an ex convict… his disciplinary parenting skills were somewhat questionable… but hey the kid has to learn somehow.

The next day my mother, having heard what transpired decided to accompany my sister and I into the backyard to play. I was somewhat relieved to have the “boss” on hand and could concentrate on some serious playing. Well unfortunately my mother thought she saw a bee on a flower…screamed bloody murder and ran into the house leaving me with my sister in the yard in less than 2 seconds. In all fairness to my mother she is deathly allergic to bees and her reaction was understandable. All I knew at the time though was that my mom left me and my sister alone with whatever unspeakable danger that had frightened her. My sister to her credit deduced what had happened. She had spotted the bee on a flower in the grass and with what I can only describe as a muskrat growl jumped and stomped on the bee…. Exactly at the same time my father came out to the back yard to see what all the ruckus was about.

Once again he rushed over to my sister and swooped her up in the middle of what looked like an NFL end zone celebration (This was before NFL end zone celebrations). He started to tell her, “look what you did?! What did I say about killing things?! No No NO! Since you killed a honey bee…no honey for a week for you!" In my mind at this rate I figured my sister would not be eating well for the next few months.

Day 3 uneventful…thank God…or so I thought. My mother gave me a weird look earlier in the day as I had flat out refused to go outside and play in the yard with my sister. Dad, Sis and myself were seated at the table, my mother was laying out a wonderful dinner when she screamed in disgust! Mom ran across the floor and stomped on a scurrying cockroach. I looked at my father ever so slowly and he at me when I said, “are you gonna tell Mom or am I?"