How Lowe Con You Go?

Two boys sit in the back seat of a car. The younger one stares straight ahead, focused on the seat in front of him currently occupied by his father. The older boy has a look on his face of pure contempt and is trying his best to get his brother to notice it. He has been ignored for most of this past year, including the duration of this car ride. To this point of the ride his face has been turning progressively redder and redder. He has tried everything he can think of. He has screamed and yelled, took a stick and poked his brother, and every few weeks he has reminded all his friends that his younger brother has cooties. Until this point, there has been nothing. The younger boy has been doing his best Ghandi impersonation. For all the effort the elder boy has put into his shock and awe campaign not one word has made it to the boys' father who has been trying to focus on getting the family out of their economic jam. 

The elder boy decides that he is just going to keep trying. His face is getting tired from his perpetual frowning, anyway. The older boy picks his nose; really digs in and finds a piece of mold-colored gold. He rolls it into a ball, aims, and throws. The booger arcs through the air and lands exactly in the middle of the younger boy's temple. Wonderful. 

Before the older boy's satisfaction can curl the corners of his mouth into a smile, a small fist flies out of nowhere and strikes him in the shoulder. Suddenly, satisfaction turns to chagrin. The whole world seems like it is ending. The younger boy settles back into his seat and goes back to looking at the seat in front of him.

A single tear rolls down the older boy's cheek. His upper lip starts to quiver. Before he can help himself the older boy screams out "Dad he hit me!" Then the tears start flowing.

Upon hearing screaming and crying dad finds a good place, pulls over, and turns to look into the back seat. Dad furrows his brow a little bit. Looks back and forth, and decides what to do. He shakes his finger in their general direction. "Now boys," he says, "I know that you two haven't seen eye to eye lately, but fighting about it isn't going to change anything." Both boys were just looking at him. It was hard for dad to work so much. He had become an absentee authority figure and both boys knew it. He continued though, "When we get home we are going to talk this over, figure out what's wrong and work this out."

The older boy saw an opportunity here. He went for it. "Daddy, I'll tell you what's wrong. I'm still mad at him for the last juice box last year. That was special juice and I wanted it." He sniffled for effect, the went on. "It's not fair. I don't care if mom said it was first come first serve. I wanted it."

Dad rolled his eyes, he knew this was the problem and it really had gone on too long. He looked to the younger boy. "What do you have to say about this?"

The younger boy looked at his father right in the eye and said, "Where do I begin? He's a moron first of all. Secondly, really thinks that any news is good news. Thirdly, he loves the limelight and I don't think anyone around the sandbox will dispute that. Lastly, he's on a pathetic little league team that can't even get on any page of the newspaper let alone the front page of the sports... and I'm sorry for saying that Daddy."

Dad was a little miffed. He looked to the older boy and said, "Okay, buddy, how do want to respond to that?" 

"I just want to say that he," sniffling again, "he lies to people, and he said that you have a pointy nose Daddy, and he said that Mommy's got fat thighs, and he steals out of Mommy's purse, and you need to look into all of that right now."

The younger boy just sat there with a blank expression on his face. He said his part, and even though he was the younger one, he knew his brother was really being the baby. Dad looked back and forth between the boys and just shook his head. This was simply ridiculous and everyone knew it. 

Credits:

Dad: Gary Bettman

Older Boy: Brian Burke

Younger Boy: Kevin Lowe

Juice Box: Dustin Penner