Charlie Hatton About This
About Me
Email Me

Bookmark
 FeedBurnerEmailTwitterFacebookAmazon
Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA



All Quotes
HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail

  |  

Howdy, friendly reading person!
I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now, but only to work on other projects -- one incredibly exciting example being the newly-released kids' science book series Things That Make You Go Yuck!
If you're a science and/or silliness fan, give it a gander! See you soon!

86

#86. I was the first grandchild on my mother’s side of the family.

Now, maybe you don’t realize the full implications of this fact. My mother is one of three sisters. For close to thirty years, my grandfather was the only male in the house. He was cast adrift on a sea of estrogen and marooned on a remote, uncharted isle, surrounded by jump ropes and purses and used lipstick dispensers. A male child was big — huge, even. Plus, I was the first child for him — and grandma, and mom and the sisters — to fawn over.

Clearly, I was spoiled.

And yet, I shrunk from the attention. (With a few notable exceptions, which we rarely speak of. Let’s just say the dog was an unwilling but quite effective participant, and leave it at that. It’s best that you don’t know the details. Really.)

For whatever reason, I really didn’t like all the cheek-pinching and cootchie-cooing. Which was unfortunate, because there was a hell of a lot of it there for a while. Sure, by the time I can remember much of anything, both my aunts had had sons, but I was still the first to talk, and walk, and read, and all of that. Really, it was quite a bit of pressure to keep up the string of firsts. My cousins were fairly precocious, you see. And before I was very old, there were two more of them, for four in all. I had to fight them off to get the ‘firsts’ I wanted. Oh, sure, I let them have a few — I passed on ‘first to get up at three in the friggin’ morning to hunt animals‘ and ‘first to get arrested for waving a knife around for no good reason‘. Oh, and ‘first to fake his own kidnapping‘. I let them have that one, too. How gracious was that? I should get a medal or something.

Needless to say, ‘first to graduate college‘ was still on the table when I was ready. It was never really in jeopardy, I’m afraid.

But it was quite a childhood. The adults looked on me to lead by example. Well, except the one aunt and uncle, who were sort of Jesus freaks. They could see early on that I was going straight to hell, I think. But I fooled the rest of them. So it was a lot of responsibility. And in the end, I preferred to sit and read, or play by myself. There really wasn’t a lot I could do for them, I’m afraid.

So maybe I didn’t suffer the full brunt of the first-born syndrome, mainly because I just refused to participate fully. But being the first had its perks, so I guess I made out all right. I was the first one allowed to sit at the ‘big person’ table at Thanksgiving (until the cranberry flinging commenced… yeah, that set me back a couple of years). And the first to leave the nest, and make his way in the world.

Actually, I’m the only one to stay gone, I think. As of now, I’m pretty sure that all four of the others are still near where we grew up. A couple of my cousins are even living with their parents, though they’re well into their twenties and with wives and kids of their own. (Male kids, by the way. Three of them and counting. God help us all.) Oh, wait, though. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. That ‘living with their parents’ thing isn’t as bad as it sounds. They’re not living in the same house. Oh, my word, no. No, they live in trailers a couple of hundred feet from their parents’ house. Yeah, see, they’ve got their own trailers, down near the pond. They’re just on their parents’ land. It’s like their own little compound.

Um, you know what? Just forget that last part. Go back to thinking they’re living with their parents, squatting in the attic or basement or something. It might be the wrong idea, but Jesus Christ, it’s a helluva lot better. I really wonder about those kids sometimes…

Permalink  |  No Comments



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail © 2003-15 Charlie Hatton All Rights Reserved
Highlights
Me on Film 'n' Stage:
  Drinkstorm Studios


Me on Science (silly):
  Secondhand SCIENCE


Me on Science (real):
  Meta Science News


Me on ZuG (RIP):
  Zolton's FB Pranks
  Zolton Does Amazon


Favorite Posts:
30 Facts: Alton Brown
A Commute Dreary
A Hallmark Moment
Blue's Clues Explained
Eight Your 5-Hole?
El Classo de Espanol
Good News for Goofballs
Grammar, Charlie-Style
Grammar, Revisitated
How I Feel About Hippos
How I Feel About Pinatas
How I Feel About Pirates
Life Is Like...
Life Is Also Like...
Smartass 101
Twelve Simple Rules
Unreal Reality Shows
V-Day for Dummies
Wheel of Misfortune
Zolton, Interview Demon

Me, Elsewhere

Features
Standup Comedy Clips

Selected Clips:
  09/10/05: Com. Studio
  04/30/05: Goodfellaz
  04/09/05: Com. Studio
  01/28/05: Com. Studio
  12/11/04: Emerald Isle
  09/06/04: Connection

Boston Comedy Clubs

 My 100 Things Posts

Selected Things:
  #6: My Stitches
  #7: My Name
  #11: My Spelling Bee
  #35: My Spring Break
  #36: My Skydives
  #53: My Memory
  #55: My Quote
  #78: My Pencil
  #91: My Family
  #100: My Poor Knee

More Features:

List of Lists
33 Faces of Me
Cliche-O-Matic
Punchline Fever
Simpsons Quotes
Quantum Terminology

Favorites
Banterist
...Bleeding Obvious
By Ken Levine
Defective Yeti
DeJENNerate
Divorced Dad of Two
Gallivanting Monkey
Junk Drawer
Life... Weirder
Little. Red. Boat.
Mighty Geek
Mitchieville
PCPPP
Scaryduck
Scott's Tip of the Day
Something Authorly
TGNP
Unlikely Explanations

Archives
Full Archive

Category Archives:

(Stupid) Computers
100Things
A Doofus Is Me
Articles 'n' Zines
Audience Participation
Awkward Conversations
Bits About Blogging
Bitter Old Man Rants
Blasts from My Past
Cars 'n' Drivers
Dog Drivel
Eek!Cards
Foodstuff Fluff
Fun with Words!
Googlicious!
Grooming Gaffes
Just Life
Loopy Lists
Making Fun of Jerks
Marketing Weenies
Married and a Moron
Miscellaneous Nonsense
Potty Talk / Yes, I'm a Pig
Sleep, and Lack Thereof
Standup
Tales from the Stage
Tasty Beverages
The Happy Homeowner
TV & Movies & Games, O My!
Uncategorized
Vacations 'n' Holidays
Weird for the Sake of Weird
Whither the Weather
Wicked Pissah Bahstan
Wide World o' Sports
Work, Work, Work
Zug

Heroes
Alas Smith and Jones
Berkeley Breathed
Bill Hicks
Dave Barry
Dexter's Laboratory
Douglas Adams
Evening at the Improv
Fawlty Towers
George Alec Effinger
Grover
Jake Johannsen
Married... With Children
Monty Python
Nick Bakay
Peter King
Ren and Stimpy
Rob Neyer
Sluggy Freelance
The Simpsons
The State

Plugs, Shameless
100 Best Humor Blogs | Healthy Moms Magazine

HumorSource

 

Feeds and More
Subscribe via FeedBurner

[Subscribe]

RDF
RSS 2.0
Atom
Credits
Site Hosting:
Solid Solutions

Powered by:
MovableType

Title Banner Photo:
Shirley Harshenin

Creative Commons License
  This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License

Performancing Metrics

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape

Valid XHTML 1.0

Valid CSS!

© 2003-15 Charlie Hatton
All Rights Reserved