I was the oldest child in my family. I can also say I was a bastard older brother, mostly I think it was because I always wanted to be a single child. So far barring any other additions (extremely unlikely) I’m the oldest of eight. So my dreams of being a single child didn’t really play out as expected. My sisters, well I was always protective of them. My brother on the other hand…. Well, we’ll leave it with the fact that we have never gotten along for any length of time.

While there are a few good stories I have about my brother, I’m going to start with one of the ones I was most proud of. It was how I killed my brother. Granted he is still alive and well and in November had his second child. So I didn’t really kill him, but he thought I did.

One day my brother was being extremely annoying, but he was always up for dare (once in high school we managed to convince him to run down the street naked when there were six inches of snow on the ground). Well, that day I had a plan. Now I’m sure almost everyone reading this has learned the method to check and see if a nine-volt battery is still good. Well in all honesty there are a few methods.

Method 1. – Plug it into something and see if it turns on.

Method 2. – Using a battery tester

Method 3. – Putting a penny across the two terminals and see if it warms up (great for melting crayons).

Method 4. – The old tried and true method of licking the battery terminals and seeing if you get a shock.

One day I decided to teach my brother method four. I would say I was nine or ten years old, so he would have been four-five years old. At first, I explained the procedure, but he (smartly) did not believe me. So he wanted me to do it first. I licked the battery and was assured it was live. I also showed no emotion to the shock of licking the battery (this was key). I then proceeded to hand over the battery to him. He was still skeptical but he proceeded to lick the battery.

His head shot back from the surprise shock ( I think it was a new battery). He was upset at this time. At first, he was going to tell on me. I then proceeded to tell him that licking the battery was going to cause him to die within a day. There was no cure and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t believe me and pointed out that I licked the battery first. I told him that I didn’t lick it at all, that I just acted as I did. So I wasn’t going to die at all.

This had him livid and crying, but as he was about to run downstairs and tell my parents, I asked him what they would think if he told my parents that he did something so stupid. He was upset and stayed up in the room for a little while discussing what to do. Eventually, he went down and told my parents. I of course got yelled at for that one. I can say that it was worth it though.