Compilation Story: Some of my brother Tommy’s Antics

This is a compilation of a few various things my brother Tommy did growing up. I may or may not have been involved at times, encouraging him like a encouraging him like encouraging him like a sidekick in a cartoon who always hands over the dynamite!  My brother loved to tease the cat and my mother, so he would do various things that would annoy them both like a smoke alarm with low batteries at 3 a.m.

For instance, my brother would walk into a room where my mother was sitting, he’d go directly over to the closed horizontal slatted blinds, part them in the middle and open them as wide as he could, and calmly say, “Hey Ma, is it raining yet?” Her reply was almost always the same, as she would exclaim out loud, “THOMAS!!!” It was like watching a sitcom rerun where you already know the punchline, but it still lands every time—like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

Our poor cat “Muffin” took a lot of crap from my brother, like a piñata on Cinco de Mayo. All I know is if I was that cat, there are many times I would have clawed my brother like a shopper on Black Friday grabbing the last TV! He used to toss her high in the air over Mom’s bed. Before she got a chance to run away when she landed like a sack of potatoes, he’d grab her and do it again and again!

Another time, he took Muffin into the bathroom and held the cat’s head close over the toilet and would flush. She was petrified like a tourist on a roller coaster, and she dug her claws into the padded toilet seat as if hanging on for life like a spider in a wind tunnel. My Mother came home from work and saw the holes when she went in there and without hesitation, yep, you guessed it— “THOMAS!!!” But this time it was followed by “What did you do?”

Tommy was famous for what he called “playing the cat.” What is this, you ask? Well, he would pick Muffin up, hold her close to his ribs and he’d take the tip of her tail and put it in his mouth. Then he would lightly pat her exposed side like a traveler, patting pockets to check for their key card. The cat would growl while he did it, as he pat her side to the beat of a song he knew, and the growls would go to the beat, so he called it “playing the cat”! Honestly, it sounded and looked less like music and more like a one‑man band auditioning for the circus!

One time he was smoking a cigarette while talking to Mom and me in the living room. He was standing and we were seated. He got so involved in whatever he was telling us he didn’t realize the ash on his cigarette fell off! Mom yelled “THOMAS!” as she pointed to the ash on the rug. Tommy just calmly rubbed it into the rug with his foot like a janitor sweeping crumbs under the table. Again, Mom exclaimed loudly, “THOMAS!!!” He just looked at her and said, “It’s ok Mom, it’s good for the rug!”, as if ashes were some types of miracle carpet deodorizer!

Another time he was headed out to be with his friends and my mother told him that his fish in the fishtank were floating like parade balloons after the party’s over. He wanted to go out, so he told her he would take care of it later. Mom said, “No, the fish are dead, and they will start to smell.” My brother promptly went into the kitchen, under the sink and grabbed a bottle of Ammonia. He poured a little in and said this will keep them from smelling like gym socks in July! It was like watching a mad scientist fix a biology experiment with household cleaner—Dr. Frankenstein meets Mr. Clean! She yelled out her infamous “THOMAS!!!” but he was already on his way out the apartment door, as quick as a kid hearing the ice cream truck. When he returned, the fish were swimming and fine! He said the Ammonia must have straightened out a problem with the water’s pH or something. Would you believe those fish lived another year or so, like retirees on a vacation! To extend the fish tank story, when my brother was a little younger, he had a toy boat. One day he decided to put it in the fish tank and put his hamster inside the boat, like the little tidy-bowl man in the old commercial- floating in a boat in a toilet tank! Of course you can guess what came next: “THOMAS!!!” LOL

When my brother was 16, maybe 17, sometimes he and his friends would drink beer on the weekends like frat boys at spring break. Naturally Mom smelled it on him and he got grounded. He came to me one day to ask, “When you were my age, you had drinks with your friends, right?” I said “yeah” and then he asked, “Did you ever get caught by Mommy?” I said “No!” He looked at me in disbelief like a magician whose trick just failed, “I don’t see how you didn’t get caught, she has a nose like a bloodhound at a perfume convention!” I replied, “You need to smarten up to outwit her, like a fox sneaking into a henhouse! You need to learn to hide it better, like a ninja in the night.” He asked what I meant. So I said, “At some point before you leave the house, when Mom isn’t in the kitchen, grab a small piece of tin foil and quickly put a bit of garlic powder in it. Right before you get home, lick the garlic as if you were Dracula at an Italian buffet, and if Mommy asks why you reek of garlic, tell her you had pizza with your friends on the way home!” His eyes lit up like a kid spotting free samples at a candy factory. Sometimes you just have to help a brother out, ya know?

Then there was the time my mother and Tommy were walking outside, and I don’t know what they were talking about, because I wasn’t there. But I never forgot the story as it was told to me. My mother was notorious for wearing pink lipstick. And whatever they were discussing, he turned to her (as a joke) and told her, “Shut your pink lips!” Mom could take a decent joke, and it did make her laugh like a hyena at open mic night when she repeated this story to me. Another time we were in the living room and Mom was standing in the kitchen doorway facing us. Whatever Tommy did—Mom was giving him a piece of her mind like a lawyer delivering closing arguments. When she was done, he calmly looked at her and quoted a song by singing, “Hey ma, take a walk on the wild side.” I thought to myself, “He must be certifiable, like a guy trying to juggle chainsaws at a family picnic!” But—it got her to laugh! I guess he knew what he was doing after all.

I can go on and on about the things Tommy did. There are many stories and many more antics to come forth in this blog. Honestly, growing up with him was like living inside a sitcom where the laugh track was just Mom yelling “THOMAS!!!” on repeat. 

Takeaway

Growing up with Tommy was like living inside a sitcom where the laugh track was Mom yelling “THOMAS!!!” on repeat. The chaos was constant, but the comedy was gold—proof that even the wildest antics become family legends worth retelling.

⭐Forks & Fiascos™ Meter Table: Tommy’s Antics Edition

Category           Rating / Notes

Chaos Quotient            9/10 – From airborne cats to ammonia‑revived fish, Tommy’s antics were pure sitcom chaos.

Laugh Factor  9.5/10 – Mom’s repeated “THOMAS!!!” catchphrase is the perfect laugh‑track; punchlines land throughout.

Shock Value    8.5/10 – Tossing Muffin, flushing toilets, and resurrecting fish? Equal parts jaw‑drop and giggle.

Sibling Shenanigans 10/10 – Classic brother‑sister dynamic: you as the sidekick with dynamite, him as the chaos conductor.

Classic Michele Moment™     9/10 – Garlic disguise trick and chainsaw‑juggling thought prove your trademark wit.

Overall Dispatch Rating          ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ (9.2/10) – A compilation that reads like a sitcom marathon, with Mom as the laugh‑track.