When my younger brother Tom, now 29, was in high school I got him a job as a manager on the football team. I was the starting quarterback so I had a little pull, and I begged the coach to give him a chance. His second day on the job he popped one football, mistook analgesic balm for linseed oil, and soaked practice jerseys in a lye solution. Many of my teammates ended up with rashes. Tom was fired the next day. This is only one tale of Tom's many "exploits."
Almost every family has one -- a fuck-up. Tom, the middle child in our family, is ours. Except that he's not a normal fuck-up but a super fuck-up.
I'm Tyler Britt, 31. My fraternal twin sisters Jessica and Marjorie, 27, and I have always had a hard time dealing with Tom. Ever since I can remember Tom has been a rude smart-ass buffoon with a jaded outlook on life. Everything he touched turned to shit.
Some say Tom had typical middle child syndrome; my sisters and I simply believe he is an ass. Not bright either. He only got through high school because the administration didn't want to keep him around anymore. Everyone in the school got tired of dealing with his constant fuck-ups and bad attitude.
Perverted ass that he is, Tom had had a thing for my little sisters since he was 18, taking "candid" photos of them, "inspecting" their lingerie drawers, and asking irritating provocative questions at the wrong time. My parents (now both deceased) didn't have the energy or ability to rein Tom in, so I had to beat the hell out of him several times to keep him from harassing my sisters. He especially had a thing for Jessica, constantly trying to "peek" at her in the bathroom, at one point drilling a peep hole between his room and hers, and trying to give her "brotherly hugs" whenever he could.
Marjorie and I were especially close growing up. We both played basketball in high school, and I like to say that I taught Marjorie everything she knew, but she ended up being a better three point shot than I was. We both also loved science and dancing, and when I was in high school, and even when I came back from breaks in college, we would go to museums, science fairs, and expositions together, and took dance lessons as a couple on and off for several years. We both also loved problem-solving and mysteries, and among other things figured out why all the bird food in our family bird feeder was too quickly disappearing, how our driveway seemed to get iced up before all others in the neighborhood, who was stealing books from the school library, and how our next door neighbor's pool water got dirty so quickly.
Marjorie and I always attempted to include Jessica in our activities, but she didn't have the same passion for sports, science, or dance that we did. She was more artistic and laid-back, and sometimes I think our intensity was too much for her to handle. She did like it, though, that Marjorie (after she once kicked Tom in the balls so hard that he walked bow-legged for two days and didn't screw much with her after that) and I did our best to "save" her from Tom every chance we got. Jessica was very easy going and was not as visibly disturbed by Tom as most people would be, although she was always grateful for our intervention.
Tom stayed in our home town and lived with our parents until they died. After college Jessica moved west, and Marjorie and I moved east, ending up within 10 miles of each other in the same metropolitan area.
At the time of this story, Jessica was married to Bill, Marjorie to Frank, and me to Sandra. Tom had a girlfriend, Samantha. While Jessica and Marjorie are fraternal twins and their faces, hair, and eye color are not similar, they have almost exactly the same body type, height and weight, although Marjorie is more muscular. They readily wear one another's clothes, including lingerie. My wife, Jill, is also very similar to Jessica and Marjorie in body type, but maybe an inch taller and five pounds heavier.
Given Tom's constant harassment of my sisters when they were teens, not surprisingly Tom's girlfriend Samantha also has the same body type that they do, maybe an inch shorter and a few pounds lighter, and looks a fair amount like Jessica. In some ways she is a good match for Tom, with the same jaded outlook on life, although she isn't an ass like he is. Although I hate to say this about anyone, Sam is really stupid too. Of course she would have to be to hook up with Tom.
Since our parents died, my sisters and I have avoided contact with Tom to the extent possible without being blatant about shutting him out. We even helped him out monetarily at times when he was trying to recover from one of his constant monetary fuck-ups. We sold our parents' house when they passed and split the proceeds four ways, so Tom had to find another place to live. Of course with one fucked-up decision after the next, he went through his portion of the inheritance within 18 months.
There's an old saying that even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, so even a fuck-up like Tom can get lucky. He proved that by winning almost $8,000,000 in a state lottery. Not only were our family members shocked by the win, we were even more shocked by Tom's reaction.
When I found out he won I called him and left him a voicemail congratulating him. After a couple of days I got an email from him (reproduced here with mistakes, misspellings, and all): "Hey, dude so ya herd bout me, huh... Thanx for the congradulation, it sure bout to make my life easier. Ya no though I wanna share in my fortune so I want you -- Jess -- Marj - and your spoues to joint me in celebrate, so Im gonna take you guys on an all expensed trip. Let me have your calender for May and we'll do it."
Tom sent similar messages to my sisters. The three of us talked and decided that we might as well take him up on it since he owed us big time for all his fuck-ups that we had to put up with or bail him out of. So an outing was planned. Shockingly Tom either organized the outing by himself or hired people to help him out since we three siblings were required to do nothing but show up.
Tom arranged for a luxury cabin in the woods, but near a ski town, for a four day and three night outing. The term "cabin" seemed to be a real misnomer from the literature Tom sent us. It had four large bedrooms on two floors, a hot tub, sauna, exercise room, in-home theater, pool room, swimming pool, one lane bowling alley, and just about anything else you could want. The nearby town was used to catering to an upscale clientele during ski season, and was open and un-crowded now that it was offseason. Tom sent us all plane tickets and had a stretch limo pick us up at the airport, which was about 50 miles from the town. Marjorie, Frank, Sandra and I traveled together, and Jessica and Bill arrived within about an hour of when we did, so all six of us took the limo together.
On the way to the cabin we all expressed amazement that Tom had been willing and able to put this together, wondered what his inevitable fuck-up would be before we returned home, and speculated on how long it would take him to burn through $8 million.
When we got to the cabin in early afternoon on a Thursday, Tom had already been there a few days, and Samantha had arrived earlier on the same day as we did. The cabin was even nicer than it looked in the literature, and Tom was surprisingly upbeat. I thought "I guess winning $8 million can improve your outlook on life," but my sisters found it weird even considering his windfall. Rather than spend our energy analyzing the situation, however, we decided, hell, just enjoy ourselves.
Tom had some locals bring in great meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, had an endless supply of all of our favorite wines and beers, and some feature movies available if we choose to watch. Everyone was loose and friendly and enjoyed all of the accommodations. Even though my wife and sisters were off-put by Tom's leering -- at least he didn't make his normal crass comments -- when they had bikinis on at the pool or hot tub, they simply ignored it. All four women looked great, and from the back could easily pass for sisters.
When noon Saturday came around, Tom said he had organized a treat for all of us. He knew Bill, Frank and I all loved to fish, so he had paid for a guided fishing trip for us. For the four women he had arranged a day of shopping, massages and spa treatments. Reverting somewhat to his perverted self, he promised to pay for everything the girls did if they all agreed to get Brazilian bikini waxes and buy the same lingerie at the town's answer to Victoria's Secret. Since it was likely (from what my wife told me -- not from personal experience) two of them already tried to remain hairless down there, and the other two were willing to try if they could buy many other clothes and trinkets, while they all rolled their eyes they agreed.
Tom didn't accompany us on our fishing trip -- he said he didn't enjoy "angling."
