My Brother is Strange

My little brother is strange.

Strange, but always entertaining.

Every time we see him, something new has happened to him, or he remembers something that once happened to him.

He does things differently than other people. He sees the world from a very unique point of view.

Did you ever watch Friends? Remember Phoebe Buffay? Do you recall how she was always saying quirky, off the wall, irrelevant things, like "I once spit in a pig's mouth"?

That's my brother.

We got together with him tonight, and as I was telling him about a chipmunk we saw on our hike yesterday, he comes out with this whopper:

"I once got attacked, and bitten by a squirrel."

But it gets better.

This happened at La Caille -- one of the most famous and exquisite restaurants in Salt Lake City (Tim was a dish washer at the time)

It happened inside a walk in refrigerator.

And the weird thing is, I believe him. This is the kind of thing that happens to my brother. But he tells the story in manner that makes you think this kind of thing happens all the time.

Because it does.

To him.

But, I can't help but laugh, as he talks about the squirrel making eye contact with him, and then running all over the refrigerator, as Tim throws everything he can get his hands on at it -- knives, bowls, tubs -- until he finally runs out of ammo, and the squirrel swaggers up to him, knowing he (the squirrel) had won. Tim takes one last swipe with his hand, and the squirrel sinks its fangs into his hand, and won't let go. He talks about the blood all over the refrigerator, and the call he had to make to some office to let them know that he might have rabies, and how no one seemed the least bit concerned that there was a possibly rabid squirrel running around in the walk-in refrigerator of a hundred dollar a plate French restaurant.

My brother's life is a cartoon.

That was just tonight.

He also swears his cat talks to him. In broken english.

He often forgets about occasions requiring presents, until the last minute. Last Mother's Day, he completely forgot, until he was on the way to our mother's house. He stopped at a convenience store, and bought her a Sprite. She drinks Coke. But it didn't matter anyway -- he got thirsty on the drive, and drank half of it. But he still offered it to her -- with the whole story to go along with it.

When we went to Disneyland a few years back, the elevators of the hotel we were staying in, had no floor indicator in the lobbies on the different floors, to tell you what floor the elevator was currently on. But one day Tim decided that they had had those indicators the day before, and he could not be persuaded otherwise. To this day, he believes some construction crew came in over night, and took all the floor indicators out. Of the entire hotel. In one night. The quietest and most efficient construction crew off all time.

Tim can recite every line of the first three Star Wars movies (the REAL first three movies), as well as the Indiana Jones movies. But he doesn't just know the lines -- he gets the nuances right. He knows what music is playing at any given part of the movie.

When he was a kid, one of his favorite past times was giving weather forecasts on a chalkboard we had in the basement.

And it goes on and on and on...

And Tim thinks this is a normal life...