More Birthday Madness
On Tuesday evening, we went out to dinner with Friend and Doc and their boys to Red Robin, as we usually do at this time of year. My birthday lands six days before Doc’s, so we have a period of time when our free birthday burgers overlap. And so, for lo these many years, we’ve been doing joint birthday dinners at Red Robin. And Tuesday is usually a good day to go, since Red the mascot is around in the evenings, and the kids love seeing him.
While we were at the restaurant waiting for our food, though, Head burst into tears. When Friend asked him what was wrong, he replied that “Ane and the Brain are teasing me.” Apparently, they had superimposed a face over a picture of a burger on the kids’ menu, called it “Head,” and then x’ed out the eyes to signify that he was “dead.”
I reminded Ane that we were in public and it would be NICE if she could be kind, but as I was repeating this story to the Webmaster later (who hadn’t seen Head get upset), I was struck with the hypocrisy of the moment.
After all, it had just been earlier in the evening, right after Ane had finished up her piano lesson with Friend, that the Brain had come in to tattle to his mother that Head had been drawing a cartoon of him.
The cartoon that Head had drawn featured Head shooting his brother (who had x’es in place of his eyes – the shots were apparently supposed to be fatal), with a stick figure of Ane watching, and a balloon coming out of her mouth, saying “Yay Head!”
The Brain described this all to Friend, who sighed deeply. “I’m so glad to see the brotherly love that you two are showing for each other,” she said.
Unable to get a stronger reaction, the Brain retreated. “I told Mom about your cartoon,” I heard him say to Head.
“What did she say?” Head wanted to know.
“She said, ‘I’m glad to see the brotherly love that you are showing each other.'” There was a pause. “I think she was being sarcastic.”
Moral of the story: Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it. And having x’es in place of eyes is possibly one of the meanest things you can draw on your brother.
But my birthday burger was delicious, and at least Tad, Rupert, and Rerun behaved themselves.
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