I Am Still The Chuck Norris Of Easter Egg Hunting

My family is probably the best family ever.  We've had some pretty spectacular holidays over the years, and we are a rather nostalgic bunch so we have had some delightful holiday traditions as well.  However, my recent nomadic ways have unfortunately meant my past two Christmases have been on the other side of the world from my dear family.  And this year, for the first time ever, I will have be apart from them for Easter as well :*(  What this means is that I will not get to enjoy one of my ultimate favourite holiday traditions: The Easter Egg Riots.

For many children hunting for little chocolate eggs is a magical and joy filled game that climaxes in the enjoyment of delicious chocolate.  But for years now my brother and I have put the 'hunt' back in 'Easter Egg Hunt'.  We have turned it into one of the fiercest and gruesomest full contact sports the world has ever known and we take no prisoners.  Our annual Easter Egg Hunts could be featured on pay per view, and the half time show would probably be the Super Bowl.  All the advertising would be for tanks and fighter planes and other gigantic war machines, and every single bar would have to close due to inevitable brawling.  It is THAT intense!  Shit gets smashed, blood is drawn, and poor innocent beagles run for their lives in fear.  Collateral damage is inevitable.  It is not just about egg quantity, it is about crushing your sibling adversary HARD and ripping away every ounce of their integrity until they are curled up in the fetal position shaking and crying somewhere in a corner muttering incoherently about eggy-wegs and death.  It is AWESOME!

Every year, after tearing the house apart in the name of chocolatey sweet victory, I have remained undefeated.  An indestructible force of Easter Egg collecting.  ...Until last year.  I don't know what happened to me last year, but I got beat so shamefully I still feel a little dead inside about it.  I was forced to concede to my little brother's superiority after a humiliating *32-14 loss.  My only redemption was a 6-3 win in the Cadbury Creme Egg portion, but it was a small consolation.  Like saying "Hey Mike Tyson, tough break losing the title, but hey, at least you won 'Best Dressed!'"  It's a perfectly noble thing to win, but Mike Tyson probably doesn't give a fuck about that. Sure Cadbury Cream Eggs are probably the most delicious things ever created, but not half as delicious as the figurative blood, sweat, tears, and shame of your little brother as you empty out your own infinite sea of chocolate eggs from your wicker Easter basket in his face while he weeps.

Of course I know it's totally petty and juvenile, but I'm not going to be remorseful about my immaturity because the fact is it's one of our little traditions.  And traditions are important because they make you happy, regardless of how age inappropriate they are.  It's like our own special way of saying "I love you" and still being super cool by pretending that we don't even like each other at all.  It is how we show affection, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I like that after all these years we are still close enough as brother and sister to dress up like zombies every year, and fight over chocolate eggs and the Panda stocking, and always tell each other our Christmas presents as soon as we buy them instead of waiting for Christmas even though Mom hates us for it.  I like that as kids we always had fun projects to do together like the Devil Dog calendar and the Shark Rock Cafe, and I like that his angel Christmas ornament is the single ugliest Christmas ornament ever made.  I like how we made up that imaginary university called YUK-U just because we thought the name was super funny, and  I like that we staffed the aforementioned university with Jim Carrey teaching "Facial Contortions", and Roberto Alomar teaching "Baseball" for the simple reason that I had a crush on him. I especially like how we didn't bother coming up with any other classes than Baseball and Facial Contortions because why would we?

So **Scoctopus, this is just a little note to say that the war is not over. I will be back to regain my crown and I will have two years of rage to pump me up. Be afraid.  (Translation: I still care and shit.) 


Moral of the story: Brothers are awesome.  Even mine <3  Oh, and thanks for taking the fall for the icing incident of 1999 ;)



*I'd like to thank the timeline feature on facebook for enabling me to actually get the statistics on that one, as I had repressed the painful score into the depths of my psyche.

** @Scoct I had an epiphany last night where I decided you should be called Scoctopus.  You should thank me because it's wicked cool.

I Am So Friggin' Messy

I cleaned my room today.  I clean only when something really important disappears.  I blame my tax forms this time.  It was a profound experience, so cathartic that instead of sleeping or doing anything productive I'm sitting here at 3:10 in the morning contemplating how I may have somehow achieved self-actualization through cleaning my room.

My Life: The Pre-Room-Cleaning Years
My bedroom is a disposal unit for the artifacts of my existence.  Well, to be fair, it doesn't so much dispose of things as it shuffles them around to make room for more crap.  Unless it's something important, in which case I'm pretty sure it actually does dispose of it.  (See paragraph about tax forms above.)
If I'm lucky my crap will make room for me in the bed so I can sleep in it.  Not always.  Some nights there is just too much crap on my bed that it simply refuses to go anywhere and since it was there first I have to sleep on the couch.
When I do get to sleep in my bed I have a tiny little section at the edge.  All the springs are busted and dilapidated, so it's kind of like I sleep in a bucket.
To find me in bed with a three-hole punch is not uncommon.  I'm far too impractical to just buy the paper with the holes already in it, and one time it exploded and left confetti all over my damn bed.
I found emerald green sparkly underwear in my drawer that I bought almost ten years ago and I have never worn it.  I remember buying it, but I really have no recollection of why.
Sometimes I fear clothing I once loved is gone forever to fashion heaven and so I weep and mourn its loss.  Then I bury it with six more feet of crap over which I will surely die if I ever lose it.
But my bookshelf, she's a masterpiece!  When I gaze up at that majestic tower of perfectly systematized and topically grouped literature it doesn't matter that I haven't seen my floor since I moved in.  Fuck, I don't even remember if I have carpeting!  Oh bookshelf, you glorious symbol of my OCD soaring high and mightily above my shit.
I wonder if a person's room says a lot about them, what would mine say about me?  "This is Ella, she lives in a cesspool, but at least she's literate!"
It's these damn nostalgic tendencies of mine to think that everything reminds me of something that is worth hanging onto, when really if it's worth remembering I'll probably just remember it without having some cheap plastic toy to remind me.  Or maybe it's my narcissism that leads me to believe that my life is just that important that I need to keep a copy of it.  Perhaps when I get around to cleaning my room I will be at peace and my increased comfort in bed will enable me to sleep more...

My Life: The Post-Room-Cleaning Era
Turns out the other side of the bed is actually flat.
Tax forms are present and accounted for, but my new earrings are still MIA.
I still can't sleep because now that I'm finished cleaning my room I'm busy writing about cleaning my room like it's a defining moment in my life.  Sadly I don't think any of life's major underlying crises have been resolved tonight, but evidently I have a pretty sweet hardwood floor.