intervention

dinner time is always a rip-roarin' hoot of a time at my house.

tonight, my mother casually dropped into conversation the fact that my brother is taking sleeping pills on a regular basis. i immediately jumped on that one and now, according to me, he is a full-blown junkie. plus he was drinking some kind of ecto-cooler green gatorade with his stroganoff; that totally seals the deal.

my mother attempted to be serious, but she's menopausal and prone to mood swings. i had her laughing fairly quickly. and my father, well...he never takes anything seriously. except for the Giants maybe.

it all started when she mentioned that he must have been sleep walking last night because she heard him eating cereal. no, in fact he was not sleep walking it turns out. he was just hungry for some Fruit Loops at 4am. i make some snide comments and make myself laugh, my dad smirk and my brother grimmace. my mother continues her diagnosis and consultation. evidently, waking up several times a night are side-effects of this sleeping pill. the irony is so vast that i ignore it and wait for a better time to pounce.

she suggests staying up for twenty-four hours straight and not going to bed until the following evening. he explains that he's done this already and it was not effective. she concedes that it did not work for her either, but thought she'd throw it out there nonetheless. her concession is so swift that we all respond with loud laughter. now she is mildly insulted. i ease her out of her mood drop by commenting that we're just trying to make the junkie feel better by infusing laughter into this difficult time. she giggles. catastrophe averted.

my brother sends me a scowl and i tell him to shut up, ectoplasm.

the next suggestion is from my father. that he exercise about an hour before bedtime, then take a shower. though this may not seem like something that may tire you, it has been passed to him from some doctor or another and he thinks my brother should try it. my brother makes a weird face. he doesn't exercise. my father is quck, however. he elaborates, using my brother's fondness for the video game. his idea is to attach the bicycle to some sort of game that he has to pedal through. it's a tired joke and we all roll our eyes. my brother explains that he already has something like that; the dancing game pad.

you mean the game that the pimple-faced adolescents play at the arcade? i interrupt.

he nods his head once, again scowling.

i smirk, some laughter spilling out of my nose. oh, yeah, those kids are cool! we're here to support you in your time of crisis, my brother! dance that ass off! dance away those pills! they don't own you, brother! i've somehow adapted a southern baptist preacher's voice.

there is a lull and we hear a squeaking voice. my father is doing something with his chair and my mom snaps at him. apparently it's an expensive piece of furniture that is not to be squeaked with. he assuages her. i'm just rubbing my toe against the table leg. unfortunately this only escalates her annoyance.

you have such fungus feet! and what about those toenails? she now turns to the junkie and myself. i think he snorts coke with his big toe.

gross, mom.