This is from Scott Adams' Dilbert Newsletter
It's only natural to feel competitive with your siblings. I recall all of those Christmas mornings, as my brother and sister and I compared gifts to figure out which one of us was the least beloved. This was important information because we adjusted our levels of misbehavior to match the rewards. There's no point in being extra good if the presents are just okay.Mealtime was competitive too. The winner was the one who moved the greatest percentage of my father's income through his or her digestive system. I was in my thirties before someone told me that eating is not a speed sport.
Now my siblings and I live in different parts of the country. Our competition hasn't diminished. It just changed to a new category: health calamities.
To win the competition, you need to boast the most painful and debilitating ailments, short of actual death, which would be considered unsportsmanlike. When one of us inherits a health problem from a parent it's worth bonus points under the theory that you "got screwed on that one."So far, my brother is winning with the most imaginative set of maladies. If I open a round of complaining by ranting about my allergies, he tops me with his gout. If my sister has foot surgery, my brother experiences some form of temporary blindness.
The majority of our health problems are inherited. That makes the competition more interesting because every time one of our parents sees a doctor about a mysterious lump, we offspring know that one of us will be visited by a similar lump. For some mysterious and cosmic reason, the genetic defects are evenly distributed across siblings. We each get a third. But the distribution is not weighted by severity. A minor problem counts as much as a major one. That means that when one of my parents gets a relatively treatable health problem, say shingles, I find myself hoping I get it too. The theory is that if I get the kind of problem that hurts like crazy but goes away after a while, it decreases my odds of getting one of the permanent ones. But it's a mixed emotion because I also want to win the pain competition. So I practice in advance how I will announce it to the family via e-mail: "Dear Family, AAAAGH!!! AAAAAGH!!! I want to die!!!"
Before you correct me, I know that shingles isn't hereditary, but I'm highly suggestive, so it is for me.
Scot Adams and Dilbert often help us to find sanity amidst the challenges of the working world. I read Dilbert every day and subscribe to the newsletter. You can do the same through the website.
Comments