Yanks Fans Cheer, Family Appalled

I always knew my family was pretty progressive and daring growing up. I mean, I never had a curfew, I was allowed to explore all avenues of creativity for hobbies and potential career interests, and I've been allowed to have co-ed sleepovers for as long as I can remember. But still having this kind of freedom, and realizing that any of the children in my family had an equal chance at experiencing fun and exciting things, I still didn't consider a combination of major league sports and stunt acrobatics to be something one of us would try.

Until today.

I woke up this morning to a frantic answering machine message from Scott's mother saying something about him having an accident and the baseball stadium and the hospital. I was worried about his safety, but figured things would be mostly OK since she said he wasn't physically injured. It wasn't until I got to work and heard some of the girls in my orientation class talking about this, however, that I pieced two and two together. And when that happened, God help me, I just about curled up into a ball and croaked.

When my mind finally cleared from the shock of it, and the dismay started to set in, three thoughts popped into my mind simultaneously:

1. How could he not only think up something that stupid, but then go ahead and actually do it?

2. How embarrassing is it to be one of his family members??

3. How amazing is it that we're only related by marriage?

As my thoughts stopped swirling and my embarrassed blush finally subsided, I once again took the stance of the soberly behaving realistic once-youngest-but-now-somewhere-in-the-middle child and repeated to myself three times "he's only your STEPbrother, he's only your STEPbrother, he's only your STEPbrother." Perhaps if I click my heels a couple of times, it'll all just go away.