My little brother got in trouble at church the other day, and now I hate him with a passion. He’s never been the brightest little laser pointer, but I still didn’t think he was that tactless. I mean, you just don’t stand up in the middle of the homily and tell the priest that he’s a lousy, faithless cretin, even if you do pronounce it “crouton,” which is slightly less offensive but nonetheless not particularly conducive to a good liturgy. And when I say “you” don’t just do that, I don’t mean my brother, because evidently he does. The guy just has no control.

Normally I wouldn’t mind. I mean, I can’t blame him—he was right. But he’s only eight! I trusted priests implicitly until I was almost eleven years old! Don’t worry; it’s not like anything scandalous happened when I was ten. I just lost confidence in the heavenly wisdom of the priesthood when Father Bill told us at Sunday school that God made each and every one of us a “beautiful human being.” Come on, even a ten-year-old knows butt-ugly when he sees it. But… eight? I guess I thought he’d make it farther.

Anyway, he didn’t, and he was sentenced to the Torture Room—the “Youth Care Center” where evil parents leave their evil children to scream at volunteer caretakers during Mass. Frequent home of Ryan “The Tooth” Winsaker and his twin, Ginny “The Tornado.” But Father Bill thought that my brother would be more productive as a babysitter than a babysat, so for two whole months we’re going to be donning our aprons and passing out nontoxic crayons. That’s right, we. Mom didn’t think it was a good idea to leave my little brother by himself with young children, and no matter how much I protested that it wasn’t my fault, she wouldn’t back down. Turns out she was right anyway. The first day on the job, I walked in, saw that my brother had sat down with some youngster and was chatting lovingly, assumed it was safe, and left to talk to the professional, Mr. Tonkard. As the capitalized Care Assistant behind the Youth Care Center, Mr. Tonkard wielded ultimate authority from his plush La-Z-Boy in the corner, where he sat in a relaxed position, lovingly sniffing what appeared to be a jar of rubber cement.

“Hey Mr. Tonkard, you don’t need any help with anything, do you?” I asked, giving the impression that he really didn’t need any help and I was just being courteous.

“Nope. Got it all underwater. Just… sneep around a little bit and check on the kiddies,” he replied slowly. Confused, I started away, then turned around.

“Hey… what is that?” I asked the man, who had begun to lick his knee with the contented smile of a cat in a warm spot of sun on the rug.

“Rubber cement.”

“Right,” I said. I walked past my brother to watch “The Tooth” devour a squeaky doll, but when I absorbed the words he had been saying, I turned around and trotted back, afraid for the sanity of the toddler in his lap. My brother was in the middle of a nursery rhyme, a literary genre he had always despised.

“…This little piggy went to market, and this little piggy got chopped off when its mommy was slicing jalapeño peppers and missed with the knife, but the dog swallowed the little piggy before anyone could save it, and even though they surgically retrieved it and got it back on with Superglue, it’s infected and it won’t be long before this little piggy catches the infectious disease, and then the next one, and then the next one…”

I tried to derail him with a “hey, uh, maybe you should go check on Ginny—” but he ignored me.

“…And eventually you won’t have any piggies left and you’ll flunk all your classes because you can’t type your papers, and you’ll be so sad that you’ll cast yourself into the sea and get eaten by sharks that aren’t even that hungry and don’t like your bland piggyless taste, and if anyone remembers you it will only be because you had no piggies when you died…”

I shouted, “Hey, look, Ginny’s trying to break the window!” but only Ginny noticed. She toddled toward me with the malicious gleam in the eye that only a truly wicked baby can achieve. My brother continued with his story like a train rushing down a hill toward a wooden bridge that has been gnawed on by rabid beavers and cannot support the weight of a feather or a metaphorical train.

“…And when you die God won’t let you into heaven because only people with piggies can grasp the handle on those Pearly Gates, so instead you’ll fall down into Hell, and when God realizes it was all a mistake and throws you a long heavenly rope so He can pull you back out of those horrible flames, you’ll just have to sit there and stare at it because YOU WON’T HAVE ANY PIGGIES AT ALL, YOU WORTHLESS BRATTY LITTLE FREAK, YOU’LL BE STUCK IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY! HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, BOY?”

Sensing that the situation was getting a little out of control, I decided to physically intervene, but just as I reached for the toddler, Mr. Tonkard leaped from his chair and sprinted toward the window. The shattering glass and piercing scream froze everyone into silence, leaving me free to run outside and administer First Aid to what I imagined would be a writhing mass of cuts and scratches on the grass outside. Strangely, he lay on the grass, seemingly unhurt but staring concernedly at his jar. As I checked him for gashes, he explained, “I saved it from the stealth frogs.” As though God had had mercy on his pitiful soul, he was indeed unscathed, although the window wasn’t in such great shape. While I dragged him back to his La-Z-Boy, he further informed me, waving his hands in the air, that these were not the droids I was looking for. By this point I had had enough. I took his jar from his shirt pocket and threw it on the ground, where it smashed into hundreds of intoxicating pieces. Mr. Tonkard stared for a moment, then pirouetted to his Volkswagen and drove away, swerving to conquer a particularly annoying bush on the way out of the parking lot.

Of course, when the Mass was over, the church administration thought it was my fault the window was broken, and Father Bill asked me if I had been “snuffling” the rubber cement. My mom has forbidden me to go near any sort of adhesives, including Scotch tape, and the missing link—my brother—has decided to support Father Bill’s crazy depiction of an older brother that passes the time only by “snuffling” and breaking windows when the Professional Assistant takes a break, even during the Lord’s hour. Life is so unfair sometimes—it’s enough to drive a guy to rubber cement. Did I mention that I hate my little brother with a passion?