Disarmament As Revenge

Particularly in elementary school, my younger brother Ben was into Nerf guns. I liked them too - though not as much as he did - and would sometimes play with him. However, I found it a bit annoying how infrequently he dealt with the aftermath. The foam bullets would litter the floor. I would keep finding them in my room or under the kitchen table, just lying there. I would tell him to pick them up, and after a lot of pestering, he might.

Actually, that in itself wasn’t so big of a deal. I didn’t mind that much - like I said, it was only a ‘bit annoying’. Overall, my brother and I get along quite well. We played together and still consider each other friends. Like many younger siblings, though, my brother has made it his personal mission to infuriate me.

Now that we’re older, and we can have good conversations, I recently asked him why he tries to annoy me when he knows I don’t like it (and that I’ll probably hit him for it). In response, he said, genuinely, and a little perplexed, “I don’t know. . . . It’s just my instinct to try to annoy you.”

I think I can understand, that there’s an impulse to test other people’s boundaries. And his efforts often result in hilarity, not frustration, depending on how I play along. So, as much as it can drive me crazy, I can also appreciate his ‘instinct’. And with years of practice under his belt, he’s gotten pretty good at knowing where the line is. Besides - I annoy him too sometimes.

Back then when he annoyed me, sometimes I wasn’t sure how to respond. One option was to start arguing with him, but that could escalate and then we’d both be in trouble. One day, I suddenly had an idea for getting revenge: I would take a couple Nerf bullets whenever he annoyed me.

Objectively, it’s a pretty ineffective punishment. He wouldn’t even see me take the bullets, and, because there are just so many of the bullets littering our house, he probably wouldn’t even be able to tell something was missing. But I thought this would be perfect. I had this idealized, fairy-tale-like concept of what would happen: I’d slowly chip away at the number of Nerf bullets, until one day my brother would realize how many had disappeared. He’d ask me if I knew where they were. And then, imperiously, gravely, I would reveal my stash. And he would realize the error of his ways.

Anyone can guess what actually happened. I took a couple Nerf bullets here and there, but soon forgot about the whole plan. Occasionally I would remember my designated punishment and swipe some, but, of course, my brother never noticed. A small pile accumulated in one of my drawers and was forgotten.

It must have been almost a year later when for some reason - I don’t recall why - my brother had opened one of my drawers. He stared down at the small pile of Nerf bullets in the corner of the drawer then looked at me in confusion and slight irritation. He asked me why they were there.

I had basically forgotten about my revenge plan, and was surprised to suddenly be faced with it again. I don’t think I said anything in response, I was so surprised. My brother took the Nerf bullets and went to his room. The issue has never come up again, and I doubt my brother even remembers it.

Still, maybe my revenge had worked out, even if it was not in the way I had intended. After all, this time I had annoyed him.