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From Adam Wienert, Taxonomy Editor:

So my sister and I are the first official brother/sister employees of Tripod. She is five and a half years my elder and we are reunited, living together for the first time in ten years. Now that we are both in our roaring twenties, we have become great friends. We weren't always friendly towards each other. She didn't like me for a while.

She was the reason I lost my first tooth, although she denies it to this day. It was the loosening of my first tooth really, but it's the same thing. I was chasing her around the apartment for some good reason. Mind you, this was before I understood the concept of luring one's meal with prime bait. As I came around the corner into the kitchen, I was met by Jenny (brilliantly hidden behind the door) and, more importantly, by her foot leveled at perfect tripping height. Said foot catches brother's ankle and sends him flying to meet the tiled kitchen floor at top speed. Tooth is loosened, crying ensues, and Adam is rewarded by a quarter. Apt compensation for dental trauma? Back in the early eighties, it bought one pack of Topps sports stickers, one of my prized childhood possessions. Forgivable offense, though seven years of braces and retainers followed. Somehow related?

I believe the tooth incident occurred at a time when I thought stories about the tooth fairy were true. This blissful innocence did not last long. Dreams of fictional characters that bring gifts and joy to those who believed, ended with the destruction of the greatest of all characters, St. Nick. My sister, always trying to educate me in the ways of the world, let me know at the age of four that Santa did not exist. She had nothing more to gain from this Christmas secret, so why not tell her beloved brother? Everything could have been fixed by a simple lie when I ran crying to my father. No, no. Better to get everyone in the family on the same page to get past the commercialism of the holiday season. Nice thought, but I was four. Forgivable offense, as sister's malicious intent could have been smoothed over by help from the parenting team. Not all her fault.

I just wanted to be in the same room. I wouldn't say anything. Just watch my sister play and gossip with her friends. Never happened. I would chase them up the stairs to get into Jenny's bedroom before they locked the door, but it's amazing how they always beat me by a step. I used to retaliate by throwing all of my Little Golden Books under the door to build a mound so high, they would never be able to get out. Wouldn't they be sorry when they were stuck forever because they wouldn't let me in? I once tried to add to the mound on the other side of the door by breaking pencils in half and slipping them under; that was quickly stopped by my father. "There are lots of children in this world who don't have a pencil to write with," he said. I should have said I was doubling the world's pencil population by snapping them in two, but you always think of the best comebacks after the fact. Not such a traumatic experience, but I did get the door slammed in my face once. That kind of hurt, I think. Must have.

My sister was ignoring me once while talking on the phone with her friend Dee-Dee. I'm certainly more important than that. I wrote her a note on the biggest piece of paper that I could find:

Jenny,
If you don't get off the phone right now I will smack you so hard you will cry forever.
Adam

She still has that piece of paper. I hate speaking on the phone. Always have. Or perhaps I began hating it when the love and attention I deserved as a child was directed over fiber-optic cables to people I couldn't even see?

Perhaps I was a bit too much to take at times. There were situations in which I pushed my sister over the edge. Every so often, I would find myself in not-so-favorable circumstances. I think my sister's favorite activity was to get me on the rug, by coercion or force, so that she could roll me up burrito-style. (See my staff bio.) Being smaller than the sitting-room rug, meant neither my feet nor my head stuck out of the ends. My sister would then proceed to sit on top of me, listening to my screams with pleasure until my mother came rushing in. "He can't breathe," she would tell my sister. "If he can scream, he can breathe," she replied. I suppose I forgive her because technically, she's right.

I love my sister and I think we are even in terms of pain inflicted. I did make her cry on her Sweet 16th birthday. I think that makes up for most of it.

My sister wanted me to add a disclaimer. She wasn't really that mean. It's just that they told me to express my feelings instead of keeping them bottled inside. You know, the voices inside my head.

— Adam, 1/15/99

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Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the archive.

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