C.K.

I was a strange kid. Often in my own world. Oblivious to the people and things going on around me. I did my own thing. I wore lots of bright colors and experimented with my outfits. I was shy but not necessarily quiet. Being the youngest I always loved being center stage. I strove to be different from all my siblings. My sisters all played the clarinet, I took up the flute. They quit soccer early on, so I decided to stick with it. They tried out of the dance team, I wanted to be a cheerleader. They went to KU, I went to Arkansas. The list goes on.

As much as I wanted to be different from my sisters, I always admired my brother. I secretly wanted to be just like him. He was the cool guy. Mr. personality. Adored by everyone. He liked punk music, so I bought a Blink182 CD. He starred in school plays, so I took an acting class. He decorated his room with black lights and glow stickers, so I did too. My brother also inline skated for most of his teenage years. I had hopes of being the cool skater chick that rode alongside the cool skater boys with the pink-tipped hair and baggy jeans. I even convinced my mother to buy me an expensive pair of inline skates. I recall skating with my brother outside the driveway one afternoon. I attempted to "grind" for the first time and fell flat on the concrete scraping up my knees and elbows. It wasn't long after that before I called it quits. The only time I ever wore those skates again were for school skating parties. I won the limbo contest wearing them, so I guess they weren't a total waste.

My brother could get me to do just about anything, like holding my breath until I passed out. He was the prankster in the family. Since he didn't have any other brothers in the house to pick on or play rough with, I seemed to be his guinea pig. He once told me that slurpees from 7/11 tasted better through the nostrils. One of my favorite past times was when my brother told me that my dog could speak. He told me if I shoved a crayola crayon up my dogs nose, that she would speak out the exact color crayon I was holding. He would get behind my dog and say "red" at the exact moment I put it up my poor dogs nose. For years I was convinced my dog was some sort of prodigy. One time my brother dressed up in his Halloween scream costume and scared the hell out of my sister Jenny after she had just seen her first horror film. I don't think she had a decent nights sleep for months after that event took place. He would tell me outrageous stories that went on and on and wouldn't tell me until an hour later that the whole thing was made up. Stories like him going out on a date with a legless girl, or hearing and seeing ghosts out by the pond in our backyard. No matter how much bullshit he fed me, I always believed it. Partly me just being completely naive and gullible, and the other part just wanting to be included in my brothers crazy lifestyle.

When my brother moved out of the house, I started to do my own thing. I got in touch with more of my girlish routes. I bought dresses, crimped my hair, and dropped soccer to devote all my free time to cheerleading. We both have changed a lot in the last few years. We are almost having to get to know each other all over again. What is cool about it though, is through this process I'm learning how similar we actually are. I am proud to say that I see a lot of my brother in myself. We are the free spirits in the family. We both are independent and do our own thing no matter what others say or may not agree with. We are the dreamers. Don't always think logically, but make decisions by following our hearts. We live for today and have the same passion for life. My brother is one of the most talented people I know. I will always remain my brothers biggest fan.

Yupp. We are definitely related, and I am proud to say so.

THE bird.

Growing up, my house was known by friends for many things. Things like it's big backyard pool, or our kitchen pantry's endless supply of junk food, and, of course, our overwhelmingly large number of pets. Fo realz. It was outrageous. All of us five kids at one point wanted to be veterinarians. And when you have 5 animal lovers, 2 push-over parents, and a big enough house to keep dozens of various mammels, reptiles, and rodents, your house turns into one big day at the zoo. We had dogs, cats, box turtles, water turtles, hamsters, bunnies, snakes, guinea pigs, and the animal I took particular interest in...birds. Why? I'm not quite sure. Being the youngest, I think it was the last animal we didn't own that I could pick out from the pet store. I wanted a pet all to myself. One that belonged to just me.

The first bird I ever owned was a cockatiel named Tillie. She was gray, with a yellow head, and orange cheeks. I vividly remember the day I picked her out of dozens of other birds at PetSmart. I recall moving my index finger back and forth against the glass cage as she followed it and jumped up and down as if she were chirping, "pick me! pick me!" So, I picked her. I was so excited to bring her home. Tillie was just about as awesome as a pet bird can get. She quickly learned to talk, sat quietly on your shoulder as you read, and loved all people. She would fly short distances from person to pseron, but we clipped her wings, so that was about the only flying she was capable of. However, she didn't seem to mind.

Typically cockatiels are supposed to live 10-15 years-old, but I only had Tillie for about a 2 years before she got sick and died. I buried her in my backyard among other graveyard family pets. My parents could tell I was upset and tried to make me feel better by buying me a new bird. A new cockatiel even. But this one was nothing like Tillie. She was white, bald, and just plain evil. Did you know birds can hiss? Well, mine could anyway. I swear this bird was a demon. I attempted to name that thing multiple times, but nothing seemed to suit it, so in time she just became known as, "the bird." We never got around to clipping the bird's wings, so it got pretty good at flying in circles. Landing, however, she never perfected. She would just fly in circles until she got too tired and ran into the brick wall to stop herself. She'd fall to the floor, and I would place her back into her cage. One time she fell into a mouse trap. Don't worry...it was only a glue trap. Though, I think she would have rather been killed than endured the hour following. My dad and I had to hold her under the kitchen faucet and wash her multiple times before we could get most of the glue off.


She was crazy from the day she broke out of her shell, but it became worse over time. She began to eat herself to the point where I could see her bones when she stretched her wings. Now, I promise you I was no cruel pet owner. I fed her, cleaned her cage, gave her fresh water, but that didn't seem to matter. Years later, she even starting laying eggs. EGGS! Dude, she had no mate. Now, what bird that's not from Satan lays eggs with nothing in them? How is that even possible? There were no baby birds growing in those eggs, but she protected them with her life. She would sit on them for hours, just waiting for them to hatch. I eventually took them to show them off to my 7th grade science teacher. He was fascinated.

I believe I was in third grade when I got "the bird." She just died last year. How that bird lived that long is beyond me. I was at college when my dad called me to tell me the news. The phone call went something like this...

Dad: "Hey Alex. I'm afraid I got some bad news."
Alex: "What happened?"
Dad: "Your bird died."
Alex: "Oh. That's all?"
Dad: "I'm sorry. What do you want me to do with her?"
Alex: "I don't know. What did you do with all of our other dead animals?"
Dad: "I'll bury her for you."
Alex: "Cool."

From now on, I'm sticking to dogs, and dogs only.

Miss Satan, herself.