by Thomas Russell

Created on: January 24, 2009

The worst thing about falling in front of a person is being in a public place when it happens. You're forced to react with some modicum of dignity, like you intended to careen to the floor in a massive heap and then lift yourself up like nothing happened.

My older brother made sure I had no dignity left when we both visited a bank to drop off a deposit. I didn't realize he had come in behind me, so I had no idea what was to come next. Standing in the teller line, chatting warmly with some of the tellers, I felt a gentle push on my locked knee. If you've ever seen a house of cards collapse, that's exactly what I looked like falling to the floor. My deposit bag leaped in the air as I lay there crumbled in total embarrassment.

Laughter in entire bank ensued. The first response I heard came from my brother's patented high pitched guffaw. Immediately, I looked behind me to see him leaning against a table laughing uncontrollably. Then I had the pleasure of seeing everybody in the bank, tellers and other customers alike, snicker or just downright howl in laughter. I can only imagine what the security cameras picked up if anyone had the chance to look at it. I'm surprised it didn't land on "America's Funniest Home Videos" actually.

The key, though, to garner some sympathy is to feign injury. I'd lost any respect by then, so I slowly pulled myself up off the floor, looked at my brother and winced as if he damaged my already frail knee. His laughter immediately changed to "Oh, no, was that your bad knee?" Leaning against the nearby wall, I played the sympathy card to the hilt, bemoaning how it wasn't a good idea to do something as juvenile as that. You could have heard a pin drop by then. The bank manager came up to me to see if I was fine. In all honesty, she probably did that because she didn't want a lawsuit on her hands.

Limping to the teller window, the employee, whom I had a long-standing jovial relationship, was aghast. My brother couldn't hear us talking up to that point, but I winked at her, whispering to her to really play up the idea that he hurt me badly. She played the role stupendously, denouncing my brother's heinous prank. By then he felt extremely remorseful for his actions.

As brothers growing up, we would always try to embarrass one another at the most inopportune times. He may have won the battle that day, but I will always maintain I won the war because the tellers never stopped chiding him about being such a terrible brother. See, being the younger brother does have its benefits.

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