Ok, so I am fully engulfed in the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I promised a new story about The Sarge. Just when I think I’ve exhausted my best stories, another one comes to mind. This one is still funny to me, although it wasn’t as funny at the time. It’s funny today because I believe the male sense of humor stops maturing around the age of 12. (You will see the connection momentarily.) For those of you who aren’t aware of this phenomenon, let me explain. Young boys find certain things funny – boogers, farts, other guys getting hit/kicked/punched/bumped/etc. in the crotch. These are the Golden Triangle of male comedy. I can’t explain why these things are funny, they just are. It’s like trying to explain why sugar is sweet. It just is. If you don’t find these things funny you are either female or male with a serious problem, and by serious problem, I mean your problem is you are too serious. This is not to say that some females don’t find these things funny, some do, but the majority don’t. The interesting thing is, grown men find these same things funny, sometimes hilarious.
If you put a group of 12 year old boys together in a room with a group of grown men of any age range and show them a movie with a guy getting kicked in the nads while farting, they will ALL laugh. You can count on it. It is one of the great mysteries of life, like Stonehenge and black holes, but it is true. Try it some time. In fact, rent the movie Benchwarmers. It is not a great movie, but there is a scene that involves John Heder retrieving a large booger and David Spade getting hit in the crotch by a rock thrown by a lawnmower – guaranteed laughs.
So, back to The Sarge. It must have been the summer after I turned 15. I was at home one afternoon, probably a Saturday afternoon and some friends stopped by. These weren’t just a couple of guys either, this was Lisa and Ginnie. Lisa was already 16 and was driving her Dad’s Mustang II. Now that was a piece of crap car. Shame on Ford for ever soiling the Mustang name by trying to make it a compact economy car. If you ever saw one, it was more or less a Pinto without the exploding gas tank, but a disgrace to the Mustang nonetheless. Anyway, Lisa and Ginnie were hanging out and decided to drop by to see me. There was no romantic involvement going on, but to a 15 year old boy, any teen age girl is at least a suspect, and here I was with two of them in the living room.
We were hanging out, watching MTV and enjoying some light conversation when The Sarge made an appearance. When I say he made an appearance, I don’t just mean he walked in the room. He made an Appearance. The Sarge liked ice cream. In fact, The Sarge liked everything, but this day, his snack of choice was a big bowl of ice cream and he decided to enjoy his snack in the living room with me and Ginnie and Lisa while sitting on the floor by the coffee table.
So far, no problems, right? Sure, but I haven’t mentioned yet that 7 year old The Sarge strolled casually into the living room wearing nothing but a pair of old tighty whities. That’s right folks; The Sarge served himself a triple scoop of vanilla ice cream and then walked himself right into the living room with me and the two honeys pretty much showing us a double scoop of The Sarge. This was definitely a showstopper folks. I may or may not have been impressing my lady friends with my smooth repartee’ and my in depth knowledge of the current music video hits, but the appearance of the great white wonder shot any chances of progress.
Conversation momentarily halted while we all absorbed what we just saw. I cannot say for sure what the other two were thinking, but for Lisa, who had no brothers, it was probably something along the lines of…
“Eeeewww, gross! I can’t believe that. I think I just went blind!”
Ginnie, however, had a little brother, so I’m guessing it was a little different in her mind. Something along the lines of….
“Hey kid, move, I can’t see Rick Springfield. Wait, what? Oh, is he in his underwear?” (rolling of eyes)
For me it was a bit different. It was not the first time I had seen The Sarge in his skivvies, not even that day. He spent a lot of time in that state of dress, and honestly, I don’t blame him. If it were more acceptable, I would still spend the majority of my time that way. In fact, the Queen and I are taking a cruise with some friends soon and I plan to spend most of that week in nothing more than elastic and cotton. My problem was more with The Sarge’s timing than anything else. If he decided to stroll through later in the day, after the girls left, no problem, but as it was, he was drowning my vibe, and that is plain wrong.
From my perspective, the incident occurred something like this.
“So, you know this video was shot in— HEY! What?!?” (obviously The Sarge just appeared)
“What are you doing?!?” I demanded.
“Just eatin’ ice cream,” he said, as if to question my observation skills.
“I see that. Why did you walk out here in your underwear?”
Looking at me like I was losing my mind, he replied, “To Eat. Ice. Cream.”
Ok, this was going nowhere and the girls were giggling hysterically. I made the strategic decision to move on and ignore him. That usually worked best because trying to reason with him or dig further for a good explanation was fruitless. Perhaps you read the story about wearing the cup to school? This incident predated that one by a few months, so I was getting nowhere fast and I decided to just drop back and punt on this one.
The conversation quickly returned to normal after this momentary diversion. Disaster was avoided and the ladies stayed. The day was moving along smoothly and we may have been discussing Billy Idol when suddenly everything changed. Maybe my brother is lactose intolerant, I don’t know. Maybe we had chili the night before, I can’t remember.
What I do remember is that right there-
in the middle of our conversation-
while wearing nothing but his underwear-
sitting on the hardwood floor-
in front of two teen aged girls-
The Sarge farted!
This wasn’t a little slip either. This was LOUD! The floor shook and I’m pretty sure he leaned to the side a little to force it. I haven’t often thought of killing my brother, but it was on my mind at that moment. This may have ended badly for both of us, but remember I said it was loud? Well, it was loud enough that our Mom heard it (or maybe she felt the floor shake, I don’t know). However she knew, our Mom was in the kitchen and immediately summoned the offender by the worst call possible. She called him by all three names.
When your mom yells your first name, you worry a little. She rarely uses the first and last name combo. I mean seriously, that wouldn’t make sense. If your name were Bob Smith, what are the chances that you have a sibling named Bob Jones? At the most, there may be two Bobs in the house, Bob, Sr. and Bob, Jr., but that’s about it. Even in that situation, families have a way of coming up with a nickname, maybe Big Bob and Little Bob, so no need for the first and last name thing again. However, from the beginning of time, I am sure Moms used the first/middle/last name combo to strike fear in the hearts of their children.
Normally, as the older brother it was my role to protect and advise The Sarge. When called out like this, I would pull him into a quick huddle to advise him how to act and what to say. Under normal circumstances, I would instruct him to look sad and apologize, maybe even cry if you can, but just a little sniffle. I would try to prepare him to prevent he maximum punishment for whatever transgression he had committed. That’s what I did under normal circumstances. This was not a normal circumstance. Dude had just farted in front of two of my lady friends, in his drawers. He had crossed a line. I know he was only seven, but this was wrong. He looked at me as if to ask “What do I say to Mom?” but I was taking this play off. He had basically blocked any chance I had of moving this conversation in a more meaningful direction and I wasn’t in a helpful mood. Today was the day he had to face the music on his own.
I don’t know what punishment he faced, if any, but I know whatever happened, it was worth it. The Sarge and I have laughed about this one many times. We have no choice; it involved one of the three legs of the Golden Triangle. Lisa and Ginnie? Who knows? I’m sure they laughed on the way home, but they probably don’t even remember it today, if they even remember me. One thing I do know, every man reading this laughed at The Sarge. I guarantee it.
thinking about stuff 