Family Story Five: Emil

The sleeping arrangements at my parents' house are not always set in stone. My siblings and I tend to fight over the best bed, which is in the "guest room," formerly my sister's room (this was before she moved into the basement as a teenager...coolest basement EVER! If only I had pictures available). There's something about the bed in that room...it's a cushy, fluffy queen size bed with no less than six pillows at the head. It's absolutely the first choice. The second choice is my old bedroom, which has a full size bed that's sort of comfortable, but squeaks every time you move. You could drop a Q-Tip on there and it would make noise, I swear. The third choice is the twin bed in Emil's old room, which we've since dubbed The United Nations, due to the giant Irish and Iraqi flags hanging above the bed.

Recently my mother put one of those pillow-top fluffy mattress pad things on my bed, which made it much more comfortable. It still squeaks, but it feels more like sleeping on a cloud, which is very nice. For some reason, Sara and I decided to call it "The Maxi Pad," since it kind of reminds us of one. It actually kind of is one, when you think about it...a protective covering...yeah! With The Maxi Pad set in place, we really had no choice but to name the twin bed in Emil's room "The Tampon." I mean, what could we do?

So a few months ago, my sister and I were visiting Chicago at the same time and were about to spend some time with our parents and brother, Emil. We met at a delicious Middle Eastern restaurant and were enjoying a lovely, mature dinner when Sara and I decided to fill in Emil with what we'd been discussing regarding the naming of the beds. There was some confusion along the way...

Me: Emil, we named my bed The Maxi Pad!
Sara: And we named your bed The Tampon!
Emil: Oh man, I totally needed one of those recently.
Sara and I: ....Wait, what?
Emil: I totally needed a maxi pad the other day.
Sara and I: (silence)
Emil: Yeah, I totally wish I'd had some maxi pads...I had the worst pimple ever...

...

Oh WAIT! Not a maxi pad! A Stridex pad!
Sara and I: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Pads. Is there anything not funny about pads? I don't think so.

Is That Something?

I am so brilliant tonight. I was sitting here on the couch and all of a sudden a word popped into my head...

WHOPPERTUNITY

How bout it. I should sell it to Burger King. Although writing it up here kind of feel stupid, since one of you brilliant geniuses will now most likely steal my amazing idea, patent the word, and sell it for millions. Well, go ahead. I'm lazy.

Another great thing I thought of once was...

PASTABILITIES

That would be sold to the Olive Garden, by the way. So if you're interested, get on the ball.

This reminds me of this one time Emil was sitting at the computer in the basement of my parents' house. He was silent for about 20 minutes, obviously very focused on what he was doing. Very suddenly, he looks up at Sara and I and says "Hey guys. Tequila Mockingbird. Is that something?"

We R Not Al 1

There used to be a store on Atwood Avenue called Uptown Grillz. I'm serious. Unfortunately, it recently closed. I guess the grill market in Madison just doesn't bring about enough business to warrant an entire store.

On a more positive note, the neighborhood has welcomed a new store this week: Spiritual Vibes. Again, I'm serious. That's the name of the store.

To quote Genia:

I can't believe Madison still gets stores like this. What is this, 1960?

Or 1993, eh Genia? I distinctly remember shopping at stores called Isis Rising and...I don't know...probably a place called Planet Earth. Goddess Central. I loved those places. They sold crystals and incense burners in the shapes of goddesses.

But really. It's 2008! Until about 3 months ago there was a store on Willy St. called Cosmic Object. The storefront windows contained aliens and other space paraphernalia. 2008 guys. Get with the times.

By the way, the title of this blog is inspired by my little brudder Emil who used it as his aol email address. I read it as "we are not all one" but he insists that it's "we are not alone." At aol.com.

family story one. starring the brother.

one time we got chinese food and we all read our fortunes out loud, and emil was last, and he read his to himself, and his face kind of crumpled a bit, as if he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and with a confused, somewhat devastated tone in his voice, he read his fortune out loud:

thank you for coming to our wedding.