Compensating Your Caboose.

The Broderick family has two curses: One of them involves spilling food on ourselves at every meal, and the other is, “Big Gut, No Butt.” While the first is only inconvenient, and I have learned to cope with it by packing a change of clothes with me in my truck at all times, the second I have been not able to adapt to as easily.

I used to exemplify the curse with my extensive gut and tiny butt, but due to the loss of my gut, I only half represent the curse at the time being. The problem with losing my gut is that I lost the tiny semblance of a butt, which I did have, in the process. Now, I have made it so that I have lost enough gut that my butt has turned concave. 

I will be the first to admit that if I had enough money, I would go under the knife and get my butt augmented, faster than you could say uncomfortable silicon. Usually people are surprised when I say that I would get butt implants if I had the opportunity to get some sort of plastic surgery, generally assuming that I would get a rhinoplasty due to my large nose. I love my nose, and would never get it touched, but the fact that people assume that I want a rhinoplasty makes me think that maybe everyone else finds my nose to be hideous and beaklike.

The problem with butt implants is that after you receive them, you cannot sit down for three months. And as much as I love standing and laying down, I couldn’t do that for three months, especially because I would regain my gut that I have worked so hard to trim down. Another reason why I wouldn’t get butt implants would be that I would not be able to decide on a butt size. Should I go with a Kardashian butt? Maybe a J.Lo… Unfortunately enough, butt implant sizes only come in female comparisons.

So for my last birthday, my best friend and her mother (who coincidently is also one of my best friends) got me a birthday present to solve all of my glute problems. The answer comes in the form of butt boosters, or tiny, mesh shorts with butt padding in the back. Not only did they get me a butt booster, but they got me two, just in case I wanted to look extra bootylicious for my nights on the town. Immediately, when I pulled them out of the box, I tried them on. First with just one pair, but after a few minutes, I had to put on both, just to see how big I could get.

I strolled about town in them and discovered how much more comfortable life is with padding on the backside. Which then made me think of the most uncomfortable chairs in the world, which just so happen to be in every church building in the country. I knew that I had to wear my butt pads to church, just to see if life would be any more comfortable.

Getting ready for church was bizarre, mostly because I couldn’t decide if I should have just one pair of pads or two. I tried on the two first and had problems getting my slacks on and over my false butt, which then just made me look ridiculous, so I opted for the one pair. The problem therein lies with the fact that I bought slacks that make it look like I have a butt, even though I don’t, so my butt looked ridiculously large (and especially wide). Luckily, with the help of a sweater vest, I was able to make my butt look less noticeably fake, and more acceptable as part of my normal body.

I had to make sure that I walked normally, so that my mother would not see my prosthetic butt, because if she had any inkling of its falseness, I am sure she would have sent me to the bathroom to take it off immediately, and then come back for a non-padded spanking. Just in case she did find out and sent me off the bathroom, I brought the other butt in my man purse, so that I could put on both in the bathroom and really make a spectacle before being spanked maliciously in Sunday School.

I told a few people about my fake butt, which just made it so that they watched me as I walked to see if they could spot a difference. This wouldn’t be so awkward if only one person was staring at me as I walked by, but by the end of church, I had a good fifteen people trying to judge my butt. Some said they could tell because it didn’t shake, and others said that it was a little too high, but nobody really said that it was unbelievable because I am known for having the flattest bum on the planet, so I was quite satisfied with the results.

The saddest part of the whole situation is when I take off the boosters, because I feel like I am naked without my butt. So I like to slide on the shorts for an extra fifteen minutes, just to make me feel like I have completely escaped the Broderick curse of Big Gut, No Butt. Then I take off my implants for the day, and hide them away so that my secret butt won’t be found and used for evil. And then, when I sit down, I realize how boney my butt is and I get tempted to slide them right back on again.

Death by Soreness. AKA Banana-rama Biking, and Lactic Acid.

The summer of activities has started, and somewhere along the way I have become more sore than I have been in my entire life. It all started when my brother threw me a coming home party; most of the people that showed up, I have never seen in my entire life, and they had thought that I was actually coming home from a mission, but that’s neither here nor there. The party was a mustache bash, and to come in, a mustache had to be present on your face. Many party goers thought my brother was joking, until they got to our house and he turned them away until they were properly mustached. 

After a while, my brother broke out the big surprise of the party: an Xbox Kinect. We projected the games across the back of the house and had everyone watch while we made idiots of ourselves. My brother challenged me to a duel of Olympic Games, which started my week of soreness. Apparently, if you raise your knees rather high, while running, you run faster on the game. I was nearly leaping in the air to go as fast as humanly possible, pummeling my feet into the cement deck. I should have been wearing underwear as well… but I had no time to change from my swim trunks when a challenge was presented. Cameron won as usual, but I still beat him in a few events.

Sunday night was restless. And after trying to go to bed at midnight, my brother knocked on the connecting bathroom door to get me for a midnight-no-longer-Sabbath-let’s-get-In-n-Out snack. This, of course, was organized by Cameron’s sugardaddy (Joe), so I got a free bunch of fries out of the trip. But going to the midnight-no-longer-Sabbath-let’s-get-In-n-Out snack, and having Joe pay for my food, meant that I owed him. This would be paid back by a Monday morning game day.

I rolled out of bed on about six hours of sleep and zombied my way to a park, with my brother, to meet up with Joe and a few other friends from the ward, where we stood in the 100 degree heat at nine in the morning. Here, I was introduced to the most bizarre combination of baseball, football, polo, and plastic that I have ever come across in my life. The game is called foobasolf, and due to how dumb the game is, I refuse to actually describe the rules on my blog, and while it was a good laugh for a while, I don’t necessarily plan on keeping the foobasolf tradition alive after I move away from home. The second game was more enjoyable, and was a combination of ultimate Frisbee, lacrosse, and beach toys. Unfortunately for the other team, I used my entire body to block any type of passing between teammates, utilizing my crotch to make players so uncomfortable that they were not able to make any type of decent throw.

Tuesday was the day of an impromptu bike ride that my Mother planned with a few friends in the ward. She told on me on Sunday, asking, “Are you coming?” Not knowing what I was coming to, I said yes, just in case she was taking a group to a massage parlor. Then I was told that we would be going on a bike ride for 22 miles. I haven’t ridden a bike in over five years, and tried to get out by saying, “Oh darn, I don’t have a bike.” But my mother was prepared, and had already managed to get a hold of a fleet of bicycles for the tour de Hemet.

Tuesday, I rolled out of bed again, but this time at six, to get prepared for the activity. I managed to pull some clothes on, which was a miracle because of how sore I was from diving at wiffle balls during the previous day’s activities. After going about town to collect all the bikes we could, we met up at the trail.

I tried a few bikes, but nothing seemed to work for my lanky body. I was left with a choice: an obnoxiously colored bike that had issues with its gears, and a decent bike with a skinny, little banana seat. In a rushed decision, I chose the banana seat, and took off on the trail.

The first few miles wasn’t horrible, but when the trail turned to rocky horribleness, the banana seat started to rise higher and higher into what should be my butt crack, but due to my lack of butt, it is just a random crack. With each rock, the seat was nailed up and up until it wouldn’t go no more. My thighs burned, I was loamed in sweat, and somehow I managed to pedal my way to the end, and laid down into the back of my truck. Rigor mortis set in, and I was not able to get up. I just laid in the back of my truck, waiting to be roasted alive by the California sun.

Somehow, I was able to get myself back to my truck, waddling of course, and drive the bikes back to their proper owners, and then I promptly fell asleep on our leather couches. I only awoke to nature’s call, which had me cowboy strutting down the hallway as fast as I could, but when I finally took my seat, I realized that getting off of the pot might prove to be problematic. I sat there and realized that I could die there, just like Elvis did, or I could force myself off of the toilet, and make something of my life. Getting off of the toilet was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, but I refused to be found like Elvis, dead and bloated on the toilet.

I had difficulty walking after the mustache bash, but then somehow pushed myself to play games in the park, where running, diving, twisting, and movement were encouraged. I thought I was sore then, but now that I made a 22 miler, I think that it will be impossible for me to move in morning, and I might die from sheer exhaustion. But if I die tonight, I will be buried a biking, diving, running, throwing winner, which is more than I ever thought I would be.

First Aid With the Brodericks, Who May as Well Be Witch Doctors

There are three things that Brodericks will always have in their first aid kit: superglue, vaporub, and a box of adhesive bandages. Of course, the super glue is probably glued shut, the vaporub only has a tiny glob in the lid, and the box of adhesive bandages only has a wrapper of a bandage left. For my most recent need to dip into my first aid kit, it seemed that this was the case.

It all started off with me chewing my nails. My brother and I have always chewed our nails: while Cameron would chew his entire finger to nubbins, I would be more precise and focus mostly on hangnails. And as much as my mother would try to get us to stop, nothing could stop us from utter mastication of our fingers. Recently, I was biting at my right pinky nail and nearly pulled half of my nail out of the nail bed. Yeah it hurt, but I just ignored it and went on to biting my other fingers. I ignored the finger for a few days, and then the infection set in. My first thought to ease my infection was hydrogen peroxide, but recently, a roommate (guess who) decided to throw it away. So my second option for sterilization was vaporub.

Vaporub has been the cure-all in my family since the dawn of time. If I ever had a cold, my mother would slather me up like a greased pig and send me to bed. Only once I visited my Aunt Shelly in New Zealand was I let in on its ability to cure any disease. She told us how if you have a sore throat, swallow a glob, it’ll make you feel better by the morning. Chapped lips? Put it all over your lips and they’ll be kissable in an hour. Dry nose? Swab some vaporub in your nostrils… that’ll clear everything up. So obviously I thought, well maybe vaporub can sterilize my finger.

I grabbed the vaporub and of course, there was a lone glob in the lid (probably because when my apartment smells, I choose to slather up with vaporub before I go to bed so that I can’t smell the dishes from my bedroom [this occurs more than I would like to admit]). I smeared the glob all over my finger, which then became the most painful experience of my life. Certain I was going to have to amputate my hand, I rolled around the apartment floor in agony. After an hour, the pain went away, and I knew there would be no way that any bacteria could still be alive in my wound. Life was good. Then it wasn’t.

I went to go sell my plasma at the plasma center, and of course, I bit the scab off my fingernail. I went into the screening booth and to make sure I only donate at that certain plasma center, they paint my right pinky nail with fluorescent paint. The woman who administered the paint did so with great passion, pushing the dye into my nail bed, which then made me realize that vaporub was nothing compared to fluorescent dye. I looked at my finger under the black light and then theorized that the dye would seep into my bloodstream, and that I would then be able to glow under a black light. I imagined how I could utilize my new found power for good… and then for evil. The woman in the booth felt bad and gave me a bandaid to cover up the finger.

As stupid as it sounds, receiving a bandaid for my finger seemed like sweet rebellion to me. Growing up, we were not allowed to have band aids unless we were going to bleed on the carpet. I’m not sure if this was the rule because we were too poor to buy band aids (but it is definitely plausible) or if it was because if one child received a bandaid, the others would want one as well, and you cannot go giving band aids out willy-nilly. That’d be complete madness. But when I was allowed to use a bandaid, I would go wild the adhesive bandages, replacing them once an hour; hence, why our bandaid boxes were only filled with wrappers.

I let my finger rest for a while, and was hoping that it would clear up after a few days. But of course, whenever something happens to my right hand, my left hand has to get damaged as well. The wound on my left hand came from trying to close a door that had once been two paned, but after a tragic weed-whacking incident, was left with one pane and shards of glass all around the door frame. I went to close the door after going in the house and cut my thumb really deep. At first, I just tried to apply pressure to stop the gushing blood, but that did nothing and the blood kept flowing. So I decided to suck on my thumb to keep from bleeding on the floor. My sister, Kathryn, saw my panic and whipped out her trusty first aid kit from her purse to keep me from bleeding on the carpet. She knows the rules well. The bandaid worked at keeping me from dripping blood everywhere, but it soon was saturated with blood. No amount of band aids could get this thing to close, so I went for the superglue.

My grandmother taught me the great use of superglue in medicine. She swore that it was the same as getting stitches, and she would always threaten to glue any cuts I had. “Want some superglue on that?” No thanks, Grandma. No thanks. Grandma was actually rather inventive with superglue, and at one point managed to glue some assemblance of false teeth into her mouth. This was of course to avoid the dentist, whom, to my grandmother, was the same as Satan himself.

I found my superglue and went to work, applying a dab of glue to a hanging flap of skin and adhering it to the other side. I felt great, and also a bit disappointed that I didn’t decide to be a doctor, because what a repair I did! Then, I decided to grab a water bottle from my room, which the pressure of having something in my hand pushed a smidge of superglue into my flesh. I may have been delirious, but I could have sworn I saw steam leaking from my flesh. And then I knew I was going to die, if not from the burning hot intensity resonating from my hand, then from chemical exposure giving me cancer.

I used all three, first aid tricks that the Brodericks possess in the period of a week, and each time I nearly died.  Why we swear by vaporub, superglue, and no band aids, I couldn’t tell you, but it is my opinion as a hypochondriac that we need to update our method of first aid. To what will we change, I have no clue, but until we get new treatment, I will continue to carry vaporub and superglue in my first aid kit.