One of my younger brothers is a volunteer fire fighter, a duty which he says has helped him recognise two definite signs of madness:

1. Running into a burning building, when everyone else is running out;

2. Running into a burning forest, when all the furry woodland creatures are scurrying out.

I can suggest another:

Doing either 1, or 2 and not getting paid for it.

Crazy.

The other day he had to shoot out to deal with a car that some hoodlums had stolen and torched.

Imagine his surprise when he discovered that it was His car.

Except, minus the expensive mag wheels.

That’ll teach you for caring for society, I guess.

He just won a fire fighting award for …fighting… fires.

The D-Man has also fought a few fires in his time, but nobody made a big deal about that.

Well, technically, I guess I was sort of accidentally responsibly for starting them. But that’s merely incidental.

(Who would have thought building a home-made flame thrower to kill cave wetas would prove sooo problematic?)

Not I.

My mother always wanted a daughter.

She gave up trying after three sons: the D-Man, G-Man and A-Hole.

(That joke is a family-gathering classic.)

The best impression I can give you of what my two younger brothers are like is to point out to you that my parents consider me to be The Good Son.

I made my house out of brick, or something.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve never spent a night in a police cell.

Dunno.

OK, so I HAVE spent time inside various prisons, but that was all Totally Legit.

You believe me, right?

I love my brothers.

I’m going to stop calling the fireman one A-Hole now (he’s actually the middle one), because that’s just plain mean.

I shall call him Bug-breath instead.

Bug-breath has a few tattoos.

I may, somehow, have been, inadvertently, possibly, allegedly, in some way… responsible.
Technically.

I used to draw on myself with pen. I would keep drawing over one particular image so that, by the end of the week, it started to look like a real tattoo.

Bug-breath saw it and couldn’t believe I’d gotten a tattoo and thought it was the coolest thing he’d seen.

Instead of just telling him the truth, I spun a very elaborate tale about getting some Indian ink from art class and drawing the design, then using a sterilized needle to push the ink through under my skin, prison-styles.

When I got home from school the next day … (can you see where this story is going?) … he had covered the knuckles of both hands with very crude and crap looking self-done tattoos.

Mum hit the roof.
She wanted to hit him.

He tried to blame me, (Who? Me?) saying I had a big-ass tattoo on my arm.

Mum marched over and pulled my sleeve up to discover… nothing. Because I’d washed it off.

The incredulous look on Bug-breath’s face was priceless.

I think of it sometimes when I need a good laugh.

Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Haaa.

His tattoos were gone the very next day. He removed them… and a reasonable amount of skin… with a work-shop grinder.

Ha-ha. Ha-ha, Ouch.

When Bug-breath left home years later, he got some tattoos “professionally” done.

I had also had a real one done.

Mum found out about Bug-breath’s when we were all gathered at the beach house and he had his shirt off, one Christmas.

Her reaction was still the same: Very, Very, Very Unimpressed.
Very.

Bug-breath started with the whole “weenie-weenie-weenie, but D-Man’s got one too, Wah! Wah!” business.

Mum marched over and pulled up my t-shirt sleeve to see … nothing.

The incredulous look on my brother’s face was priceless.

He couldn’t believe he’d been suckered twice.

But mum just hadn’t pulled the sleeve up high enough to see mine.

And she never believed anything my brother said about me ever again.

Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Haaa.

This is why I am The Good Son.

It has nothing to do with being good.

It has Everything to do with Not Getting Caught.

I was fortunate enough to have Bug-breath flatting with me when I was living in England.

Two M-boyz loose in London. We’d bite at car tires and howl at the moon. And sometimes we weren’t even drunk. Etc.
Well, unless you consider two dozen jelly donuts an Illicit Substance.

Good Times, Good Times.

He gets drunk quite easily, so I’d always have to look out for him, and ensure he didn’t get his body wedged in the supermarket’s automatic doors.
Or his head stuck in the train doors.
Which was not uncommon…

He did get to return the favour once when I had a rather unfortunate drink-related Loss of Stomach Content Incident in the Underground. He held onto me, while somehow giving a disgusted granny a smiling thumbs-up as my Drunken Mass power-chucked onto the electrified center line.

Anyway, my only regret was getting drunk on this one other night and grabbing one of those little novelty jumping penis toys things that they sell in Amsterdam and sticking it out my pants fly.
Bug-breath took a photo.

That photo now sits on the mantle-piece at his home.

He tells visitors that that midget-sized thing actually is My Thing.

Which is really mean, cos it’s really at least a quarter-inch longer.

If I stretch it.

Which is why I probably don’t feel too bad about, inadvertently, shooting him in the buttocks with a chook pellet-loaded air rifle.

Allegedly.

Possibly.

Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Haaa.