Indeed, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Cain’s sending Abel to sleep with the fishes started one day when Abel yelled, “Cain’s on my side of the outside of the garden.”
And Cain said, “Am NOT!”
Abel: “Are TOO!”
Until Adam finally yelled, “DON’T MAKE ME COME OUT THERE, because I’m already chuffed that Yahweh kicked my naked butt out here,” and Eve said, “Careful, dear, the boys are getting big, and you know how delicate your chest is where you lost that rib.”
Next thing the first parents — or even Yahweh — knew, Cain whacked Abel upside the head (or, perhaps, Dutch-rubbed him to death, although obviously the Dutch weren’t even born yet) and got in even more trouble than his folks had.
Fortunately, most rivalries don’t reach the Cain-Abel phase, but there’s still plenty of caterwauling in the perennial jousts with the simple goal of irritating the HELL out of each other. It’s just a tradition of the human condition — some might attribute it to Adam’s fall, while some wags might refer to it as a trap that Eve sprung lo those many millennia ago, and her sisters have been repeating ever since. (I’ll not get into THAT theological/psycho/social argument here.)
Oh, tactics may change, but they all boil down to variations on the jousting over who’s on whose side of the back seat, who’s touching whom, and who has to wash (vs. dry) the dishes (yes, grandkids, there was a time before dishwashers, even before my era of dishwashing, which history records as Pleadwithparents Period, based on the most common whine, “I did the dishes LAST night”).
Of course, it’s easier to observe the smackdowns these days, now that my kids are grown and I don’t have to settle their tiffs when they’re raising Cain against each other. (Hmmmmm, disadvantage is that, once in awhile, I’m in the line of fire as a direct target instead of collateral damage. That could be to work out frustrations they developed when Dad was king and they were mere serfs, heh, heh, heh.)
Also, the rivalries I’m talking about don’t reach the furious stage at which one smites the other, as Cain did in a fit of mommy and daddy envy. Yea, verily, rivalries now usually shred egos instead of skin.
Vincent, being the oldest, at 8, often is the shredder, while 6-year-old Jack often is the shreddee. Being the second child myself, I can identify with Jack, except that my elder is a girl, so it was even WORSE for me, heh, heh, heh.
And so it was the other day, when the lads stayed overnight, and Jack was waxing eloquently about how much he enjoys Jazzy and Dewey, whom he lovingly was calling his “cousins.” This was just a few hours after they had reduced him to fearful tears when they greeted him at the door.
Oh, did I mention that the recent additions to the household are dogs? Jazzy and Dewey get incredibly excited when people arrive, barking and jumping and, well, Dewey’s tail gets a wagging so blamed fast I could swear his butt’s gonna fall right off.
Jack’s making strides in overcoming his fear of the canines, so much so that, by the end of the visit, he bravely petted them and relaxed on the couch. That’s when he was calling them his cousins.
And that’s when Vincent’s sibling superiority kicked in, as he said, “JACK! They’re DOGS! Only PEOPLE can be your cousins.”
Appropriately chastised, Jack continued to call them cousins. I think it’s OK, even endearing — as long as he doesn’t start sniffing their butts to greet them instead of jumping out of his skin.
Speaking of, I found this interesting little video on YouTube:
So far, though, he just sits on the couch with his cousins, Dewey in top photo and Jazzy, next:
Returning to dogs' sniffing habits for a minute, I'll note that, if you’ve ever seen a dog in a barn where horses hang out, you know that canines have a different idea of what constitutes a delectable food chain.
Speaking of that, I’ll note an interesting Jack fact: He’s a jabber jaws who can talk on any subject at great length. The endearing part of that is that, when he doesn’t actually know something, he just makes it up with such authority and confidence that it’s tough to separate fact from fiction.
Indeed, he is so convincing that I often find myself believing him, even when I know that what he’s saying is flat wrong.
We — Jack and I and Vincent and Kate and Jazz and the Dewster — were watching something on the Animal Planet about predators. I can’t remember exactly which predators were eating which prey, but Jack the dinosaur genius was waxing eloquently about how they could absolutely devour humans.
Vincent threw a damper on his lecture by proclaiming, “JACK! Humans are at the top of the food chain! We’d eat THEM!”
I laughed right out loud because the only observation I had was that I didn’t even know there WAS a food chain when I was 8. The only chain I knew about was a bicycle chain, because mine was breaking.
Of course, that was back in the dinosaur age, even before Jurassic Park.
Kids today, the things they know, and the things they can make up when they don’t know. It makes me rivalrous with them.
And, as the rivalry continues, Vincent happened to be adept enough to get BOTH dawgs in a picture with him:
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