The Most Terrible Weapon

Yesterday, as I was pouring myself a glass of milk, I witnessed, on the edge of my periphery, my brother in law bending over. And there, ladies and gentlemen, was buttcrack. My pupils dilated. The rest of the world seemed to disappear. There was only myself and the buttcrack. You see, I am deeply amused by buttcracks and if I spy one, it cannot go unremarked upon or unbothered. If I am very familiar with you and your personal boundaries, you might just end up with something in there; a lint roller, a shoe, a note that says "wash me", a sign that says "VACANCY", or something of equivalent ridiculousness. Knowing my BIL's proclivity towards dropping ice cubes down the shirts of unsuspecting victims…

I. COULDN'T. NOT.

Thus, I shut the refrigerator door ever so gently and pressed the pedal to summon forth a single ice cube. With the grace and surety of a panther, I slunk forth. A quick hook of a finger and the deed was done. "GYAH!" he cried, as the frigid cube disappeared into his underwear. I cackled away gleefully to observe the show from a safe distance, feeling quite wonderfully avenged for all those times he dropped an ice cube down my shirt. This was ten times better. I dropped one down his butt! "HAHAHA!" Oh, it was glorious, watching my ordinarily cumbersome ogre of a BIL transform into the most graceful belly dancer, whirling around in circles, gyrating, shimmying, desperately trying to excise the ice from his arse. Oh, it was marvelous.

It. Was. Marvelous…

Until I noticed the darkness beshadowing his eyes and the malicious rictus spreading across his face as he raised his hand, therein clasped a small, glistening object. It was in that moment I realized I had armed this malevolent cave troll with the most terrible of weapons….

BUTTCRACK ICE.

I casually took a sip of my milk thinking that if I did not run, if I did not betray any signs of mounting abject horror, perhaps he would not realize the magnitude of the weapon he had come to possess. But oh, he knew. He knew. And he gave chase so I did the only thing I could, the only option available to me at that horrific juncture…

I RAN LIKE A LITTLE BITCH.

Determined as I was to remain unacquainted with the unholy marriage of ice tainted by the horrors of my BIL's buttcrack, I may have slightly splashed a tiny bit of milk allover the goddamned everywhere.

My mother cried out; "Bobbie Jean! Put the damn glass down!"

"I can't!" I replied. "I'm afraid to stop moving!" For as cumbersome and ogrely as my deeply asthmatic BIL is, somehow, that mahfucker is still remarkably goddamn fast. No matter how far I ran, he always remained no more than a few feet behind me. I knew that I could not stop, not even for a moment, or I would be smote with the consequences of my own bad decision…

BUTTCRACK ICE.

And not just any buttcrack ice…

BROTHER IN LAW BUTTCRACK ICE!!! Full of poison and cooties and farticles and Gods only know what else.

I leapt over the couch into the realm of baby toys hoping that the Legos and assorted pokey objects might slow him down but there was no such luck. He hopped across the plastic minefield like an army pro over a path of tires. I circled the kitchen counter and he did the same. Around and around we went. I detoured this way, I dodged that way, I scrambled wherever there was an open space, hoping to put some distance between us but never did I gain anymore than a few scant inches at best. I vaulted over a cat, two dogs, and a toddler in rapid succession like an Olympian triathlete hurdling grand champion and he did the same without missing a beat.

I considered bolting towards the nearest door but it was locked and I knew that in the precious moment it took to unlock it, I would be smote. Another door lay at the end of a long hallway but he, with legs ten times longer than mine, would outrun me for sure. The only other exit? Blocked by a baby gate too tall for my dumpy ass to jump over. A great fear rose in me, the fear that I was condemned to run forever from the wielder of the mighty Hoarfrost Shard of Buttcrackery Doom, locked for all eternity in a game of buttcrack and mouse. To my ultimate shock, in a twist of fate I could not have foreseen as my thoughts were too busily occupied with desperately fleeing for my life, the whole affair was over in a blink when we both realized that the buttcrack ice had melted in his hand.

We stared at each other across the silent void. A smile curled on my lips. "HA!" I cackled maniacally. "HHAAAAA!" I was free! I had won! I laughed and danced in place. "Not today!" I howled. And that was when he took a big step forward...

Then slapped me upside the head...

With a handful of...

BUTTCRACK WATER.

There came, from the depths of my soul, a sound no human being should be capable of making, like a fleet of trains careening off-track through an orchestra of tortured power tools shrieking into a bouquet of trombones, like a chorus of Styrofoam, an eternity of nails on a cosmic chalkboard, and every fork in existence vigorously scraping odes to Chopin across an endless sea of plates. This was no mere loss. This was the loss of losses. I played a stupid game and won the grand stupid prize.

His victory having been achieved, my BIL crumpled to the floor in a half-dead, wheezing pile. Without hesitation, I flung myself into a certified hazmat decon shower and scrubbed myself from head to toe with sandpaper. When asked if he was dying, my BIL replied; "yes." When asked if it was worth dying for, he replied; " yes," without hesitation. He did not die but he did lie half-dead on the floor for upwards of fifteen minutes.

When asked if I learned my lesson, I replied; "yes. I learned perhaps the most important lesson one could possibly walk away with from all this; the importance of planning out petty vengeance more carefully lest it buttcrackfire on me. Next time, I'ma nail that motherfucker and run like hell right off the bat."