Hoodwinked by my little brother

NOT SO DUMB BLONDE
By Laura Hutchinson
I SUPPOSE most of you spent the Christmas holidays with your family, singing carols, eating pudding and generally basking in the warm glow of familial love. Oh how I envy you. Me? I spent it being blackmailed by my little brother.

I guess I had it coming, really. I mean, there I was, all smug and smarmy, thinking I was great for having finished my Christmas shopping with about a week to go. Usually I spend Christmas Eve dashing around department stores grabbing whatever’s left that’s still remotely intact, and trying desperately to haggle over what isn’t. But this year, despite saving my long locks a traumatic tugging, I couldn’t just sit back and relax. Oh no. Not satisfied with just being prepared, I took it upon myself to rub it in the noses of those who were decidedly less prepared than I. And it became my undoing.

I sent a smug email to my little brother, all of 15 years old, reminding him that he’d have to get presents for mam and dad. I sat back and imagined the panic I had created, softly chuckling away to myself. But the reply I received was not one of alarm or apprehension; it was one of downright insolence. It went along these lines: “You buy them for me”.

The cheek! I floundered for all of five seconds before gently reminding him that slavery had been abolished. (Honestly, I don’t know what they teach them in school these days.) Nonetheless, I offered to do it if he paid me an extra tenner on top what the presents cost. To teach him a lesson, like. You know, about the value of money, and how nothing comes for free and all that. ‘Cause I’m an excellent big sister.

It wasn’t two minutes before he came back with, “Make it a fiver”. Well! I nearly slipped right off the sofa, so shocked and appalled was I at my smart-ass little sibling. Luckily, having literally taken negotiation classes in college, and with “argumentative” being my middle name, I was up for the challenge. (How I didn’t actually come out of the womb in a gown and horse-hair wig is beyond me.) So, thinking I had the upper hand because it was a case of him either acceding to my demands or having to buy the presents himself, I stood firm. It was a tenner or no deal. And do you know what the little scallywag came out with next? He said I should take the fiver because anything he had to pay me was coming directly out of his budget for my Christmas present! He had me caught both ways. I either took the tenner and settled for a crappy Christmas present, or accepted the fiver in the hopes of something halfway decent. Checkmate. I would’ve throttled the little git had I not been so immensely proud of him.

While taking some time to ponder my dilemma, I went and got the presents and made my way home to Athy. With my parents safely out of the way one afternoon, I showed Seán what I had bought, expecting a thousand thank yous and eternal gratitude. Instead, what I got was, “will you wrap them?”. After that, I decided to be sneaky and say nothing about the money he owed me. Instead, I waited eagerly to see what grand gift he had in store for me, ignoring his “Mam told me to get something simple, so I’m just going to put you under the tree” comments.

And do you know, dear readers, what he had waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning? Absolutely nothing.

Needless to say, I took the tenner.