Once upon a time, there was an only-child named "Me." I was a happy little girl, content to hang out on my own, to play flip-bottle by myself and to boot on my rattle without being judged by any cradle-crampin' siblings. I had the playground convinced I'd been the coolest kid in the womb and no tattletales were around to expose me as a thumb-sucker.
Then one day, my little brothers Pete and Teddy popped out of my Mommy's butt. (I was told that's how it works. This probably explains a lot.)
I was skeptical that anyone could emerge from this frightening voyage and turn out even remotely normal, but P&T seemed to have made it out okay.
Well, actually Teddy looked like he'd gotten hungry along the way and gorged himself on half of Pete, but besides that (and the raisins in their belly-buttons) they looked like your standard little babies.
(FYI: "The raisins" were dried-up umbilical cord scabs. This may explain my childhood fear of the 1980s phenomenon, "The California Raisins." Something was troubling about the idea of giant, sunglasses-clad umbilical cord scabs singing "Heard it Through the Grapevine.")
On December 23, 1986 my parents brought my tiny brothers home to our brand-new house in Chicago. They left us in the playroom so we could get to know one another. I told my little bros all about the rules of pong and made them sign a contract outlining demands they'd have to meet if they ever wanted to go to Dartmouth with me.
That fated day eventually arrived when more then one name on the DND matched "Mathias." PDpabs and Tbone (?) had joined the class of 2009. The following is "The List of Demands" that they once agreed to meet and are now expected to follow. I ask that you notify me should you witness the violation of any of these conditions. There are fifty juice boxes on the line here, people.
Condition 1: No showing anyone "The Banana Girl" photo.
These are my demands. As long as this contract is being upheld, I am more than happy to have my brothers here at Dartmouth.
I'm the oldest of five children and the only non-twin of the gang. Johnny and Marian were FedExed to our doorstep two years after Pete and Ted were born, evidence that my parents changed "the butt story" and were also total genetic freaks.
Whenever people find out that I have two sets of twin siblings, the first question I'm usually harassed with is: "Wow! So what does it feel like to not have a twin!?!" My go-to witty answer is: "Well, you probably don't have a twin either, do you?" Their response: "Uhh ... actually I do, that's why I asked what it's like not to have one." Me: "Oh. Damn. Well, it basically feels like trying to be witty and then failing miserably, but lonelier."
The truth is that, as a little kid, I didn't feel at all left out for being twinless. In fact, I took one look around my family and assumed that everybody out there had a twin. I was an individual, selected directly by God to put on a black leather jacket, jump on a motorcycle and ride at the head of the pack.
I guess all those years of playing alone in the corner made me a pretty delusional kid. I've since come to terms with the fact that I'm really, really jealous of their twinships.
The one perk of rolling solo was that I was clearly the boss. For years, I was the ringleader of the circus of our childhood. Not even trying to go English-major on you there. We actually put on a circus every year for our neighborhood in Michigan. I was the ringleader/lion tamer/little teapot understudy.
In those days, P-Potato and T-Bear loved to get each other in trouble. One day, Petey and Teardangle were playing with sticks in our backyard when the air was suddenly filled with an overwhelming stink.
Our grandpa apprehended Pete, who was innocently squashing around in his diaper. Just as Gramps was about to scold little Pedro for being a nuisance, Pete's eyes grew wide and watery and he chirped his token get-away phrase: "Teddy did it!" Teddy overheard this accusation and promptly fled the scene of his crime. We still haven't figured out how Teddy snuck his poop into Pete's diaper.
Having my two bros at Dartmouth with me has totally warped my Facebook experience. First of all, "The Mathias Fan Club" would have never been so totally ridiculously overwhelmingly packed had they not matriculated this fall. I hijacked a friend's account and tried to charter a MFC last year, but myself and Stifler's Mom were the only proud members.
Now the club is full of all the girls who refused my initial invitation to join, but, for some reason, are constantly re-requesting my friendship these days.
Peetie Sweetie and Tear-dangle are "fraturnal" twins, ("fraturnal"= an adjective designed to mean both nocturnal and fratty, invented for the purpose of tricking you into believing that they're Hard Guys for the benefit of the family name.)
Having brothers in the basement is great, but two are just about enough for me.
I've been discouraging P&T from pledging a frat because if they do, according to the Transitive Law of Logic combined with New Hampshire Legislation, I'll be forbidden from getting my flirt on with my 60-plus new fraternal brothers.
When people find out that the three of us go to Dartmouth, the first question always posed is: "So, your Dad must have gone there too then, right?"
At this point, Ted and I bust out the chains and restrain Peter from packing up his SAT scores and heading to Princeton (where his intellectual ego will be unharmed by the "you're-dumb" implications of being a Legacy). Once Pete is locked up, Ted and I head back to the library to soak our coloring books in drool.
It is tough for me to come to terms with the fact that my sibs will inevitably show me up in life. As many of my friends have already discovered, Pete, Teddy and Johnny are way smarter, funnier, and cooler than me, and may or may not be ghostwriting this paragraph.
Few (realize that they) have met my little sister Marian, who is ajunior in high school. Meimei has visited Dartmouth on more than one occasion, but in order to meet my friends, she must always agree to (a) introduce herself as a rando, (b) wear a fat suit, and (c) speak in iambic pentameter. It's just too soon for cute dudes to find out that I have a younger sister who is exactly like me, but better at it. I have to graduate, snag my M.R.S. and poop out a few twins before that can happen.
- Midterms = finito. Time for a game of (family) tree. We need a fourth! (Later.)
