Paranoia

Roomie and I were looking at the new house across the street the other day and she said something about stucco. I had a flashback to when I was about 6 or 7 years old and my brother was 14 or 15. It was the late 1980s and in addition to that Life commercial (in which the kid says, "He likes it! Mikey likes it!"), there was a local commercial on for some stucco remodeling company* which showed the before and after shots of tutor houses, town houses, and industrial buildings.

Whenever this commercial would come on, my brother would say, "Hey, that's owned by the mob. Because you saw it, they're gonna come after you..." I think the lasting effect of these words still show today. *I totally remember the name of the company, but didn't type it for my innate fear of "knowing too much."

Around this same time period, he'd also start the car for my mom on winter mornings before school. Sometimes I'd go out to the car with him before my mom was out there. He'd say, "If I push this, the car will blow up." (It was the cigarette lighter.) He'd fake it a couple of times and then push... I always waited to hear if that "pop" of the lighter would really be "kaboom" of the car.