I was born a twin. There was me and my brother Eric. For a long time, my parents pretended that we were one kid. If Pete was napping, Eric was on the scene to dump spaghetti on his head. If Eric was sick, Pete would step in and take care of business. My parents said it was something about screen time.
We lived in a house with our wacky relatives. We had our uncle who somehow made money as a puppeteer, and our other uncle who was sometimes in a band with the Beach Boys, but the rest of the time it wasn’t really clear what he was doing. Everyone thought he was a badass, but I’m still not really sure why. Leather jacket? Greased hair? Constant doting on his wife?
Eventually, our parents split and we were split up as well. My new mom was this aged, but still kinda hot workout lady with kids of her own. That meant we were part of a pretty big family now, not to mention Cody (“The Code Man!”) who lived in his van in our yard. I remember talking to dad about the Code Man. Why was he living in a van in our yard? Couldn’t we just make him either live in the house or get the fuck out? It seemed like a very awkward situation. At any rate, we got into trouble sometimes, but nothing too serious, and at the end of the day we always learned important lessons about family and how sometimes a patched-together family is really the best kind of family a fella could ever ask for.
Right before high school my twin brother and I were reunited! It was amazing! Here’s the really weird part: I had grown into a sort of wild man, more likely to hit the books by karate chopping them in half at a rock concert than by opening one up. But Eric, my brother, he was a total bookworm type! Isn’t that crazy?
My dad was a sort of buttoned-down black man with a mustache. Eric’s mom was this eccentric black woman who was almost as sassy as she was spendy. They made quite a pair, let me tell you. They had a lot of arguements over the right way to raise us twins. And we had a lot to say about the matter ourselves. Like the time that Eric needed to be cool to get a date to homecoming. I helped him be cool but then I got sort of jealous because he was cooler than me. But in the end Eric decided he liked studying better, and he felt bad about betraying his old friends. Me, I had to study for a big test one time. If I didn’t pass I was going to be held back! So Eric had to teach me to buckle down and really study. It was kind of funny looking back on it. I had the hardest time, and then I didn’t feel like I was learning anything at all. I said, “Man, I’m having a harder time with this than when George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day!” Eric said, “Wait, what did you just say?” It turned out that I wasn’t a total idiot and I was finally learning something.
High school was a blast. I hung out with a really buff Mexican guy, a black girl, a hippie chick, and a generic hot babe. Oh, and a nerd. We always had a scheme going, you know? Like selling test answers I was getting from a teacher who trusted me, but then I felt bad about betraying the teacher’s trust. Or betting on the football team to lose and trying to get my buddy to take a dive, which he didn’t. We were always in trouble, but we always made the right decision in the end. And there was always a group of people standing around to say Woo! whenever someone kissed, which was nice.
I grew up and married a lovely woman. Everyone said she was way out of my league. It was probably true. I was pretty overweight and goofy while she was probably somewhere in the top 25 hottest women of the time. My boneheadedness must have gotten us in a big turmoil about once a week or so. I lost my wedding ring I don’t know how many times. Living right next to her sister was weird too because she would come over a lot and make fun of me for being dumb and fat and not very rich. I always just sort of took it, I guess.
I’ve recently moved into a retirement home which will likely be my last address. It’s nice, though not as peaceful as one might think. Most of the grannies here do things like rap and wear hats backwards. They also say frank things about sex which is HILARIOUS because they are old.