Mr. Butter's Tales of Glory

Sibling Goals

I have a younger brother who looks exactly like me. Naturally, this means that he was cute as hecc when he was lil. Now, I am almost five years older than him and we both love swimming, so every summer we would go to the pool and never leave. 

At our pool, we only have one deep-end and diving board, so the lifeguards alternate between having the diving-board open and closed. My brother and I like using the diving board, but the older kids at the pool prefer swimming in the deep-end. They were friends with the lifeguards so the board was almost always closed. This presented nine-year-old me with a dilemma, and so I set about finding a solution. Of course! I would simply ask the lifeguard to open the diving-board using my naturally agreeable nature.

I approached the lifeguard chair and asked, "Can you open the board?" to which she replied, "In a couple minutes." and I was waved aside.

With my plans in disarray, I scrambled for an answer. Why had my plan failed? It was foolproof. How could you say no? Then I realized that I was not cute enough to ensure the success of my plan. After all, I was tall and lanky for a nine-year-old, most of my baby fat was gone. But my brother, he had just turned five! He was the answer! I swiftly put my new plan into action.

"Hey, go ask the lifeguard if she can open the board." 

I watched in triumph as he waddled up to the lifeguard, batted his eyelashes, and politely asked, "Can you open the board, please?"

The lifeguard smiled down at him and sweetly answered, "Of course, buddy" and opened the diving-board.

Never again did we have to wait for the lifeguard to open the board.