If I were to describe myself as an older brother I would probably say
cruel but fair. Then amend that upon further reflection to unfair. We
loved shooting stuff around our house with the two pump up bb guns,
one rife and one pistol, that we owned. We would set up toys at the
end of the hall and try and shoot them down from the other end of the
hall. Sometimes we would set the toys up in front of the piano and
try and shoot them from across the living room. Misses would chip the
enamel which we didn't know until years later and my mom was trying
to understand the pocking of her piano and we played dumb. You may
think that some kids who would shoot air guns in the house would not
have to play dumb but no one asked you. The other really fun game was
to load the guns with q-tips and shoot my little brother and sister,
which is as fun as it sounds. Getting shot with a q-tip from a
pump-up bb pistol is not very painful but it does have a certain
aversive property. I would yell out, 'Jose! 1...2....3...' and then
shoot him if he had not made a hasty retreat. Just shooting someone
is not as fun as seeing someone scramble for a few seconds before you
shoot them. I would reload and start the three count again and again.
Sometimes it was Jose's turn and sometimes Beth's. That is why I need
to further re-amend to 'kind of fair' because I did make sure
everyone of the unwilling participants got a turn and that they each
got a three second count to absent themselves from the field of fire.
That is kind of fair by any reckoning.
