Brother

My brother always used to buy me thank you presents. After every one of his birthdays he would get me something to say thank you for the present that I'd gotten him. A Star Wars figure usually.

That was until one year when he said "if you don't mind - i don't think we'll do thank you presents any more".

I was gobsmacked - I didn't even realise that they were thank you presents. I thought he was just being nice. I was clearly taking them for granted but, equally, it was the last thing on earth that I would have expected him to have been doing in the first place.

He was the sort of brother who would arbitrarily come into your bedroom, sit on you, threaten to spit in your face and when your screams would bring a parent (slowly) running, he'd say that he was restraining you because you'd "gone berserk"! Oh the injustice! Oh the gut-clenching frustration of being the younger son!

He was the sort of brother who'd scream like a lunatic and the prospect of having to share something with me. The golf clubs incident is still pretty fresh in the memory. Not in the least because I didn't care that much. Seriously. Golf clubs.

And here he was buying me thank you presents. But not any more it seems.

And I'd never ever gotten him one.