Friends are God's apology for relations. ~Hugh Kingsmill

So, for those of you who know my brother, you know that he is an interesting character, and that he is to be handled much like one would handle a piece of antiquity - regard it closely, without ever really breathing on it or touching it with bare hands and by all means don't attempt to remove it from its place of rest.

He is goign to be 27 years old this month, and has never left my parents' house, never attended college, never had a girlfriend - as far as I know (and let's face it, how easy is it to have a steady girlfriend when your mom still cuts your meat before handing you a pre-made plate of food), and is in general a crabby, angry mess. He claims to hate everything and everyone and to need nothing from the world, and I would believe him if not for the steely hooks he sinks into Ben every time we go home for a visit that he is reluctant to remove even when we leave.

Anyway - Patrick has gotten into this "I don't want any gifts for any reason ever ever ever" mode. He tried to start this at least 5 years ago, and we've all just ignored him, until his latest protestations which led my mother to say, "Fine, I'll just put all the money I was going to spend on gifts into a savings account so you'll have something when I die." Um, I'll take the cash option, too, please. Except I wasn't offered it. But never mind, this isn't about me. It's about my lunatic brother and how, in an effort to show him that he is an ass for forcing everyone to play by his rules, he will be made to see that he should be careful what he wishes for.

After we visited home near Christmas, we began to tease my brother that instead of buying him gifts, as he has requested, we would simply start donating to charity in his name. We thought it hysterical the look on his face when we described to him the grateful notes he would receive from children of third world countries, who would refer to him as "Mr. Patrick" and bestow upon him great honors, such as renaming villages and first born children after him. "Oh, thank you great Mr. Patrick. I love the clean water I drink now to not have the dysentery. We love Mr. Patrick here in Patricktown!!!"

He hated us every time we brought it up. Which only made charitable donations in his name even funnier to us.

The way I see it, donating to charity in his name is a win-win-win situation. He gets no tangible gift - Win. Some organization gets a donation - Win. We irritate the shit out of my brother - WIN.

The BEST part ever is that I even found a site, DonorsChoose.org, that will have the recipient of your donation take a photo of the students participating in the activity you funded AND have all the students in the class write you a personal thank you note for the donation, which MEANS - My cranky, crabby, asshole of a brother would start getting photos and thank you notes from 8-year-olds all addressed to "Mr. Patrick."

MWAH HA HA HA!!!!!!!

Clearly, I am an evil genius.