WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Phones, a Lifesaver, & a Ski Pole

In the house that I grew up in, we were not allowed to call each other names, belittle each other or fight..........when my mom was around.  So we had to wait until she left for a church meeting or something.  then we could drag out all the hurts from last Monday and duke it out.

As a result, we rarely fought.
That is shy I remember this particlular doozie!

Looking back, I behaved soooo immaturely; it's almost embarrassing.
Luckily, I couldn't have been more than 8 or 9.

I don't know what started the argument.
My little brother says I threw a phone at him.

On further reflection, how could I throw a phone?  You all remember the late 70's.  All phones were tethered to the wall.  So, if I threw the phone, all he had to do was jump 15 feet out of the way.  It couldn't have had more than a 10 foot cord.

Chasing ensued.  When we are being chased, why do we always run into some dead end room?
I ran to my bedroom.

The next thing I know,
I was lying on my back on my yellow shag carpet.
My brother had me pinned and was taunting me menacingly.
He leaned over me and gathered up a gob of spit in his mouth.
He let it slowly come out of his mouth in a narrow slimy string and drop down to just above my face and then sslllluurrpppp it back up and cackle.

Don't you hate him?

Luckily, I had a wintergreen lifesave in my mouth.

With all of my power,

I spit the lifesaver out of my mouth up toward his taunting face.

It went right to the tip of his nose
and then plopped back down onto the side of my cheek.

He was in such hysterics over my failed spitting attempt that it gave me the chance to roll out from under him and run.
I was furious and rightly so.
Who cares that I can't remember what he initially did to make me mad.
But it's pretty obvious that now, he deserves to die.

I ran to who knows where and grabbed the first logical weapon I could find:

A SKI POLE

A chase ensued- up and down flights of stairs, through the dining room, family room, and kitchen.

As I manically ran up to the top of the stairs with the ski pole high above my head like a dagger,
my date walked in (okay so maybe I wasn't 8 or 9).

Like a completely sane person, my date dared to ask,
"Gina what are you doing?"

"I hate him!  I'm going to kill him!" Duh!

And then in the same rational voice he still uses with me today,
he said, "Gina, put down the ski pole or we're not going out."

"I DON'T CARE! I'm killing him."  That should have been his clue to turn around, go back downstairs, get in his Camaro and never return.

He stayed.
Exhausted from trying to aim that lifesaver and run up and down the stairs,
I gave up on inflicting death.

We went on the date.
We got married.
My brother is still alive.
He lives two doors away.
We are very close.
Sometimes I still want to kill him.

This was an answer to prompt #3 at Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop "Tell about your childhood home."  It has nothing to do with the other part of prompt #3 "What are you feeling guilty about."  But you knew that!