A Tale Of Sibling Debt

Because I am the eldest of four children, I always had the largest bedroom. It’s a right of birth and one of the advantages of being the parental guinea pig. That and never having to wear hand me downs from your older sister.

It was what would have been the original master bedroom before my parents renovated the family home, it had double wardrobes and large windows and best of all it was the envy of my brothers. Particularly the older of the two, Andrew.

Andrew was one of those kids where if you gave him a bag of Easter eggs he’d just eat one or two and then he’d play with the rest. He’d make little Lego trucks for them and divide them in to colours and stash them away in little containers for later. Totally the opposite to me where I’d rip them all open in a frenzy, scoff the lot and then scheme how to pilfer Andrew of his.

He was the same with money, whenever he had any he’d put it away and save it where as I never had the ability to do that.

So for my entire teenage years and pretty much up until the day I left home he was my private bank and I was always in debt to him. We operated our own little financial system where he’d be able to trade money for services such as “You owe me $X so can you go to KFC and get me some lunch” and we’d negotiate how much of my loan was extinguished if I went to the shops for him.

Because none of this was above-board, some of the things we traded weren’t either. One of my highly prized skills as a teenager was the ability to forge Mum’s signature and Andrew could have my services at a cost so for a long time it kept our fiscal arrangement going.

However when I discovered clothes and fashion the Stephanie recession hit. I became desperate and needed money to supplement the $3.15 I was earning per hour at McDonalds.

So I had to start selling off property.

Therefore at the tender age of sixteen I made my first real estate transaction and I sold him my bedroom. For $400.

I can’t remember the elaborate lie that we told Mum as to why I was ‘voluntarily’ giving up my room. He didn’t want her to know because she’d ask how on earth he had $400 and I didn’t want her to know because I thought she’d want a cut of the profit considering she owned the house.

The moral of the story: I should have charged $600

The End.