Memories of summer: Sleeping in, road trips and teasing Little Brother

Saturday, July 14, 2007 Memories of summer: Sleeping in, road trips and teasing Little Brother By Orlando R. Lorenzo
When I was a kid, the arrival of summer meant two things: I could sleep in as long as I wanted without having to hear an alarm clock (for the first few days, I'd actually set my alarm just so I could chuck it across the room) and family road trips.
Summer used to be built around vacations. For me, that usually meant a drive down to Virginia. The ride was usually six or seven hours, not factoring rest stops or breakfast. Sitting in a minivan for that long wasn't my idea of a good time and especially because as I got older, I preferred to spend all my free time with my friends. Let's just say I wasn't exactly a pleasant travel partner.
As soon as we hit that point where turning around for a forgotten item was pointless, my eyes would start to wander. I'd look around the car and see whom I could annoy first.
My Dad? No, might get smacked. Mom? No, might get smacked - twice. Grandma? Nobody messes with Grandma. Baby Sister in the car seat? Tempting, but she'll start crying soon anyway, so what's the point? Ah! Little Brother. Yes, at two years younger, Little Brother was perfect.
You see, one of the benefits of annoying my brother when we were younger was he was so loud and I was so quiet. I'd bother him at a whisper, he'd respond at a sonic boom. When Mom or Dad came running into the room, he'd catch all the flak for yelling. By the time the real culprit was discovered, I'd have high-tailed it outta there.
You had to be subtle in this scenario, though. A shove or poke would be too obvious, quite frankly, amateurish. Nope, passive-aggressive tactics were required.
Some tools in my arsenal included the effective Stop Looking At Me - a simple stare down from across the car. No physical contact, therefore, no reason to get punished, at least that's how I'd sell it.
Another favorite was Stop Copying Me - repeating everything he said or did. This has been handed down from generation to generation and works not just with younger brothers, but cousins, annoying nieces and nephews and stupid neighbors' kids.
Another tool only worked at rest stops - He's Sitting In My Seat. For some reason, my brother always sat behind the driver's seat and I always sat behind the front passenger's seat. Running back from a bathroom break and making a beeline for the rear driver's side door would elicit such a noise, you'd think an Indian Point alarm was actually working.
Bothering my brother was the easiest, but not the most enjoyable. Sometimes, I'd sing infectious pop tunes that were impossible to get out of your head. Or TV show theme songs - backwards. Once I even did radio play-by-play on a Yankees game I was making up in my head - with commercials. Amazing.
In the first inning it was a novel "isn't that cute?" By the second inning it was "enough." Around the bottom of the third, it was "another pitch and you're walking home from Delaware!"
Sometimes, I'd start trouble without meaning to. At about halfway through New Jersey, we'd always stop off at this all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Man, they had everything: bacon, ham, home fries, scrambled eggs - and I love scrambled eggs. The only problem was about an hour after the ride resumed ... well, maybe that's for another column.