One of my kid brother Max’s Christmas presents, courtesy of my ex, was The Dangerous Book for Boys. (I wholeheartedly approved this gift.) Max, reading about it, learned that there was a companion volume, The Daring Book for Girls.

“I should get that!” he said seriously. “Then I’d know what kind of skills girls have!”

The sounds of his sister quietly having hysterics and having to be supressed like the guinea pig in Alice in Wonderland were fortunately lost to posterity.

I have a very, very bad mind.

ETA: Further moments in sibling bonding…

I got Max the Lego Star Wars game for the PS2, which he has been playing enthusiastically (you get to hack stuff up with a lightsaber, but they fall into lego pieces, so it’s apparently okay.) We get a blow-by-blow account, as one might expect. He was very upset to find himself playing Anakin.

“I don’t want to be Anakin!”

“Don’t worry,” I said soothingly, “we know you’re a much better actor…”

Later on, as I was writing, I got “Guess who I’m now–I’m–that one guy–you know! With the purple lightsaber!”

“Mace Windu,” I said automatically, not looking up.

“Yeah!”

I became aware of the sudden loud silence behind me as my mother nobly refrained from laughing at my geekery. Tom didn’t even try.