jiffy boy, the quintessential big brother: he's in, he's out

to all you cooper five enthusiasts out there, i'd like to announce to you the commemoration of one of the grandest days in the history of cooper history: the birth of the eldest cooper child, jeffrey max. jeff is my older brother, well at least he is now. for about a month he and i are the same age, but for more on that go back to the post i authored earlier commemorating my birthday (12/2).

jeff is a junior, not in college (although it wasn't that long ago that jeff was a junior in college having gone to five different schools over the course of six or seven years to earn his ba or something like that), but in namesake. my dad's name is jeff, too, as is my boss' and now my nephew has the same name... but he goes by max. too many jeffs in my life. jeff is arguably one of the greatest big brothers ever to grace the face of the earth. jeff always gave me what i wanted even though it meant he got something less and he always stuck up for me even when i was wrong (not common); and since the title of greatest brother is determined by what a sibling let's me have or to what extent he is willing to stick up for me, jeff takes the cake. in fact, on occasion, when jameson is not living up to his older-brotherly duties, i have him call unlce jeff to get some pointers on how to be a better big brother.

for instance, if you ever have the pleasure of meeting jeff, ask him about the pair of shoes i bought for myself with money he loaned me and then sold to him for a profit. it's not as bad as it sounds, although i think he thinks it is. in my defense, it was an arm's length transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller.

all in all though, jeff was a great friend to have growing up. since we were so close in age we shared pretty much everything from day one until he went off to school. i was done sharing boxers at that point... especially since when i met up with him in argentina after he'd been there for a year and i was just arriving, he told me the best thing about the country were the bidets because it meant no more skid marks for him (note to readers: this was a post leaving home/south american issue). for those who haven't had the pleasure of using a bidet, here is the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet

my point is that jeff and i were pretty close. we quareled over a girl, we got in a couple fights for each other and with each other, we shared bunk beds, we coordinated hiding report cards from our parents together, i cheered him on as he tried to ride a skateboard on his belly under a truck and came out from underneath after not making it with blood running down his face and he was there when i ran into a tree stump on a moutain-side and came out from behind it with a stick stuck in my leg.

we were the dynamic duo in the dennis the menace sense of the term. during our younger years we let all the air out of our grandparents' car tires but not before we took the car out of gear and let it roll into the middle of the street. we poured hot sauce into a cup of v-8 juice when my grandpa wasn't looking and then coaxed him into drinking it, we painted the brick wall in my parent's backyard in an effort to make our own macdonald's, and we were thinking "green" long before al gore when we tried to see if our grandparents' lawn mower would run on urine. for the record, it didn't.

for those who know our children, you are probably saying "justo" if you speak spanish. if you don't speak spanish, you are probably just saying "figures;" but you'd really only be saying that if you know our kids and speak english. yes, our kids are the personification of revenge in our parents' eyes. they're a cute and lovable personification of revenge, but revenge nonetheless. a quick example would be pf changs in boston some five years ago. during one of the greater cooper family field trips to boston, we made our way to a pf changs in downtown boston. i don't think the servers and workers at this particular pf changs had ever seen a family consisting of more than four people, much less a family of two old people and six kids, three of which were married each having two kids of their own.

needless to say, because i said it in one of my last two posts, we were an overwhelming presence. Hi, we'd like a table for fourteen with three high-chairs... i mean, this wasn't utah. we were every waiter's dream better yet, every bus boy's dream. what's mroe, the cooper family feeding hour is not always a pretty sight... especially not when there are three high chairs involved. on this momentous occasion, jeff's kids were driving him crazy. food was everywhere, drinks were being spilt, crying, scolding, patience was wearing thin and tempers were on the rise (and that was just the adults, j/k)... the usual cooper outing.

well, apparently jeff had had enough of his kids' hellraising behavior... for as the rest of us talked, laughed, and argued with one another, we all of a sudden noticed jeffy boy pop up out of his seat and with a look of stern resolve/urgency/frustration on his face, he muscled his way over to jeffrey max the third to pick him up, high-chair and all (he literally lifted up the high chair by its arms while max sat in it), before marching straight out the front door with the high chair in hand.

i'm not sure what crossed through the waiters' and hostess' minds as they saw a patron burst through the main entrance carrying a high-chair with a kid in it... maybe they were just happy to see some of us leave and figured the cost of the high-chair was well worth it... at any rate, jeff had boldly done what none of the other cooper parents had done before: jeff had left the building with a pf changs' high chair. he eventually came back in and returned the high chair... and max had no visible bruises, so we all had a good laugh about it then and still do. it was a one-of-a-kind sight (are you supposed to say "an one-of-a-kind?" that just doesn't sound right). he was in and then he was out.

in closing, as has become tradition here on this fine and upstanding literary work known as a blog, i will share with you another choice "in and out" moment in the history of jeffrey max cooper, jr.... a little one i like to refer to as the glass coffee table.

my brother, jeff, and my sister, kathryn, had some pretty epic battles with each other while growing up. it seemed like they were constantly at each other's throats much to my parents' chagrin. i usually steered clear. maybe i exaggerate a little, or maybe i really deserved the "nephi" nickname my parents had given me as a child (as if)??? at any rate, on this particular night, jeff had finished his homework and was looking for something to do and what better way to spend your time than to annoy your younger sister who was busy trying to do her homework.

well, that's exactly what jeffy boy did right up until the point where not only kathryn was extremely annoyed, but my mom, too. so fed up with the antics of her children (the other two, not me), kenna jo drew an imaginary line in the carpet and told jeff to stay on his side and out of kathryn's space or there would be dire consequences when papa jeff got home. if memory serves, at that moment, kathryn, with the backing of the parental guidance, then let out a resounding, "stay out of my space!" as if that was enough to stop jeff from aggravating his younger sister... not in the least, in fact, kenna jo had just breathed new life into jeff's quest to irritate his sister to the point of near incapacitation.

and with that he fleetingly hopped from one side of the line to the other as if jumping rope, making sure each time he crossed the line into kathryn's space to dip his head down down low enough next to kathryn's studious ear just long enough to quip "i'm in!" before quickly jumping back to the safety of his side of the maginot line where he would glibly gloat "i'm out!" such fun was this little act of annoyance, that jeff repeated it over and over and over as kathryn got madder and madder and madder (not really a word/s). her anger only emboldened his behavior.

kenna jo was powerless at this point. jeff, jr. had intentionally disobeyed a direct order from the mother ship at the risk of sever repercussions when big jeff returned home, so he had to make it worth it. as such, he continued right up until the point when k-jew finally snapped and sprung up from her chair with the ferocity of a thousand suns... at which point we all knew something memorable was about to take place.

and take place it did. upon standing, kathryn gave jeff a good shove a couple of steps backwards after which she repeated "get!", and then repeated in rapid succession another two or three shoves each followed by "out! of! my!"; with one last grand finale shove followed by "space!" bold and noble, kathryn. but, unfortunately for her, and even more unfortunate for jeff, and even more unfortunate for the coffee table in tsunami kathryn's wake, neither of the two happened to notice that jeff's backwards trek had a coffee table with a glass top directly in its path. it just so happened that in the heat of the moment and the rapidity with which everything took place, no one was able to stop or warn the two warring siblings from the great event that was destined to happen: the fall... and great it was.

upon kathryn's final push sending, jeff tripped backwards over the table right into the living room's coffee table,backside first into a fragile seat of glass that shattered into a thousand, maybe a million, shards and went everywhere all at once. all while i sat quietly reading my scriptures or something like that. the crash was startling and luckily nobody was hurt, but everybody knew at that point that the real fireworks were only about to get started. but that's a story for another day, i've already passed the 3,000 word limit for this post i swore i would stay under from here on out.

thus, in closing, i would like to tell my brother, jeff, that i really miss that coffee table. it was a one of a kind table that i could always count on to be there when i needed some support. no matter how many times i used that coffee table, it still let me kick up my feet on it and use it some more and i don't even drink coffee. but, that's neither here nor there. jeff, you are the kind of brother we all should be (that can apply to sisters, as well). enjoy your 34th and know that i am forever grateful for your influence in my life.