Brothers and Boogers and Lamps

WARNING – This entry contains material that may not be suitable for some people. Reader discretion is advised. Consider yourself warned.

One of the coolest things I ever owned was this lamp I got when I was a kid. My mom worked at a store that sold light fixtures and such, and she brought home this cowboy lamp for me. It had a horseshoe for a base and the riser was made from a replica of an old west six shooter with pearl handles. Of course it was topped off with a shade and had a light bulb inside…for the light, ya know. Gunsmoke and Bonanza…Maverick and Paladin – those were the shows we were raised on, so you can imagine how much I loved this lamp. And she got my older brother one just like it.

Did you know I have an older brother? We shared a bedroom – would have painted a line right down the middle of it if mom and dad would have let us - but back to the lamp story. It was bedtime and the last step of our nightly ritual was to turn off our cowboy lamps. The room had been dark for about a minute when suddenly I heard this loud THUMP! What in the world was that? I jumped out of bed and turned on my lamp. There it was, stuck to the shade of MY cowboy lamp. Somebody had slung the grossest, the nastiest, the most disgusting booger you ever hurled your lunch over.

(You were warned!)

I was so mad I couldn’t see straight. I said “somebody” slung that nasty thing, but there was only one other person in the room. Frankly, if there would have been a dozen guys there I would have known he did it by the way he was laughing…like a hyena on crack! But how mad I was didn’t begin to compare with how mad I got – when I realized it wasn’t the lamp he was aiming at!
Older brothers are cool though. If you have an older brother you have somebody to call when your car breaks down, or when you need advice on whether to take that job offer. When dad passed I found it a little easier to accept because I still had an older brother.

If you don’t have an older brother you can borrow mine for awhile. Just handle him with respect and return him in the same condition you got him, normal wear and tear excepted.

Oh yeah, you might hide all your lamps first.