Happy Birthday to my bro. Paul

That's him on the right. The family mythology goes that I was promised to him for his 3rd birthday, but I came a day early and he was pissed off. That may explain why he became my nemesis for the next 12 or so years, putting his enormous intellect to use cooking up ingenious new ways to make me cry, such as combining my name (Suzy) with the word "pig" and calling me "Sig" or directing beams of light at me and chanting, "Spotlight on stinkbomb Suzy." (When my parents finally intervened, he changed it to "Spotlight on you-know-who." When they put a stop to that, he figured out that all he had to do was quietly hum the cadence of the chant. He was a master.) He ended my one person crime spree at Treasure Island by teasing me mercilessly -- using the now patented quiet humming method -- about something I shoplifted, until in desperation I returned said item (I suppose I owe it to him that I'm not doing time in San Quentin.)

I was a textbook example of the Stockholm Syndrome and worshiped the ground he walked on. A day he let me tag along with him and his friends was a good day indeed, and I lived for those times. I frequently tried to buy my way into his good graces with Bazooka Joe comics, of which he was a passionate collector.

Somewhere around the time I was 12 the antagonism stopped and we became friends. I love him dearly. Happy birthday, Paul!