Now THAT'S Golden

I took the following passage from an email from my brother. My brother is three years older than me, and smarter and more talented and better looking and just genuinely more perfect. Yes, there's someone out there closer to perfect than myself. Hard to believe, kids, I know, but there it is. Anyway, he's also traveled more than me. He has been to Greece, Malta, Switzerland (one of those places where all the women are blonde and all the men play rugby), down the Colorado river, the Grand Canyon, the Bahamas, Bermuda and other places in the sun that I can't even remember (he's been to France and Ireland and the Virgin Islands too but those don't count because so have I). I think the only place that I have been that he hasn't is Italy (I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong and he has been there). Oh, and I've been to California. So, it is with a few chuckles that I pass on this snippet. He wrote it to my father, who had just returned from a vacation in California with his wife. I love the way this is written, and just had to give him a poke in the ribs.

I'm happy that you two had a great time in California, (it did sound like fun) but in doing so you have done me a great disservice. I am now, officially, the only person on the east coast over the age of 12 who has not been to California! I always keep this fact quiet, for as you know, if you mention it to anyone the reaction is painful; first, they look at you as if realizing that you are indeed retarded, then they will berate you with every experience that they have had in the Redwood state, from their first sno-cone at DisneyLand to the "best chimichanga they ever had" out of some food truck on the streets of L.A.! Oh, yeah, and about the time they think they "actually saw Kato, you know O.J. Simpson's poolboy?" I can now only assume that by being the last person to visit "Cali" these encounters will only get worse. Thanks.

Chris, perhaps we can go to California together someday, when our kids are teenagers. They can stay home and have huge whopping parties in YOUR house while we grown-ups sip wine in Napa and eat sno-cones at Disney.