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Monday 28 December 2015

The suitcase trick

I've always been a poor sport, losing was never my thing. Being constantly in competition with my older brother, I always had to be on the winning side of a face-off.  If I lost, I would throw a temper tantrum, or call him names.  Cheater, asshole, idiot, etc.  It was his fault somehow if he won, I'm supposed to win!

For as long as I can remember we always competed on things like:
  • Who can hold their head under the water the longest. - This one particularly got to me the most, I swear my older brother would slowly pull his head out of the water so I wouldn't hear him come up, and then dive back in slowly to get an extra breath on me.  
  • Short distance running competitions.  - He always ran faster than me, so I always had an excuse for my loss.  Like "I sprained my ankle on a rock", or "my knees randomly buckled".  Sometimes I'd even walk around "injured" for days just to play it up.
  • Handball - Dad bought us two kid size hockey goalie nets and a rubber ball to throw across the room. This was a game we were equally good at.  I legitimately won at least half the time,  When I didn't win, I caused a scene.  There was always a reason why I lost. My brother's pants or socks were too thick, or he only won because he's a head taller than myself.  It was never because I sucked, and always because he had some kind of unfair advantage on me.
One day I decided, instead of holding our breath under water, we would take turns zipping each other up in a large suitcase.   As soon as you beg to come out because you're about to pass out from a lack of oxygen, you stop the timer, and then let the other person out. Finally something he can't cheat at!



I'm ashamed to say, this did not go as planned.  I thought it would be funny to just walk away and go watch some TV.  I figured there must be enough oxygen seeping through the zipper holes that he'd be in there for hours. Now on second thought, this would just be a stupid boring competition that he'll win because I wouldn't have the patience to just lay there for hours, but he would.
Off I went to watch some Saturday morning cartoons. I have no idea how much time passed, enough for me to completely forget about him when he finally came up the stairs.



I was shocked to see him standing before my eyes, I thought that suitcase was impossible to get out of without assistance. 
"How did you get out of there on your own?" - I asked.
Adrian, very calmly persuaded me that it was nothing really, and that it was now my turn.
There was an eerie tone to his voice and sinister look on his face, but I thought nothing of it.  If he could get out of the suitcase, so could I!  After all, I'm better at everything than him, why should I be worried?

I followed him downstairs and curled my body into the suitcase.  After being zipped up it was maybe 30 seconds before I couldn't breath.  I was hyperventilating, begging, screaming for my brother to let me out.  I felt like I was about to pass out, I wanted to figure out how to unzip the suitcase from the inside, but I couldn't think, I was panic stricken, I couldn't move.  All I could do is scream and beg and plead like a mouse caught in a trap half dead, begging for their life to be ended or saved. One of the two has to happen NOW because this limbo phase between life and death is just unbearable. 

Fortunately, Adrian didn't run upstairs to watch TV, instead he let me out a few seconds into my panic.
He could have left me for dead if he wanted, but he didn't.  



You'd think I'd be grateful for that, especially considering I basically left him for dead in retrospect. Now experiencing what he must have went through, I still wasn't grateful, I was ANGRY.  
Why was I angry?
He won, but only because he must have sneaked an oxygen tank in when I wasn't looking.  It's the only explanation!








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