2. What Can I Do For You?

Brat Boy got home from basketball practice and slumped onto the couch next to his sister. “Who’s calling you?” she asked him.

Puzzled, he looked at his phone and said, “Nobody.”

“Exactly. Yesterday I told you to call one of my freshmen teammates. If you had, your new girlfriend would be calling today. You wouldn’t be alone and miserable, a smelly pile of broken spirit and defeat.”

Brat Boy looked baffled. He pointed out he wasn’t lonely.  His spirits were high. He’d just showered.  I told her he was happy with the status quo and it wasn’t her job to find him a girlfriend.

 “Didn’t you say brothers and sisters should look after each other’s best interests?” she asked.

“I also said sometimes the worst thing you can do for someone is something they can, should, or want to do for themselves.”

I was glad Blondie was only half serious about picking her brother’s next girlfriend.  I’d seen too much deadly serious enabling, meddling, and manipulating, sometimes done with love, sometimes disguised as love and done out of spite and a need to control. 

Today I won’t do anything someone can, should, or wants to do for themselves.

Sober Not Somber © 2015 by Ken Montrose

(Just a reminder: Sober Not Somber is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to anyone you might know is purely coincidental.)