{"id":100,"date":"2010-02-14T07:15:44","date_gmt":"2010-02-14T11:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=100"},"modified":"2010-02-14T07:15:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-14T11:15:44","slug":"natural-born-slam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=100","title":{"rendered":"Natural Born Slam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the myriad ways in which siblings will give each other shit, perhaps none is as timeworn and tested as the bid to de-legitimize one another by telling you that you\u2019re adopted.\u00a0 My sense is that the \u2018stigma\u2019 of adoption, if there still is one, is a holdover from the days of primogenitor, when the adopted child stood to inherit less (if anything) than their siblings.\u00a0 In this more advanced age, adoption seems to have become so commonplace that the idea of any negative connotations seems laughable.\u00a0 Just my opinion, I have no data.\u00a0 (I would state that I have no experience, but I was raised by two wonderful and loving parents who to this day tell me I was not adopted.\u00a0 In my heart, though, I am certain that I was the bastard love child of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe \u2013 what else could explain my charisma, talent, and good looks?)<\/p>\n<p>Before we get to the rest of the story, a little background is required.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>None of our children were adopted.\u00a0 (By us.\u00a0 We\u2019re accepting bids, though.)<\/li>\n<li>Number One Son looks so much like me that it\u2019s scary.<\/li>\n<li>The Reigning Queen of Pink was born with a rare genetic disorder called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ninds.nih.gov\/disorders\/incontinentia_pigmenti\/incontinentia_pigmenti.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Incontinentia Pigmenti<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a random genetic whoopsie, not life threatening, but making her nevertheless complicated; at 7 yrs old, her medical chart is twice the size of mine at 40, and she\u2019s had more \u201cprocedures\u201d than I\u2019ve had.\u00a0 She\u2019s been diagnosed as \u201cinteresting\u201d in our pediatrician\u2019s office.\u00a0 When they close the shop and sit around and talk, they talk about her.\u00a0 (We know this.\u00a0 They\u2019ve called.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Back to our story.\u00a0 The Reigning Queen of Pink, who has the innate sense of primogenitor and privilege so common to the aristocracy, decided she should convince Number One Son that he\u2019s adopted.\u00a0 This does not actually take much effort, since she\u2019s the youngest \u2013 he knows where <strong>she<\/strong> came from, but he can\u2019t really remember where <strong>he<\/strong> came from.\u00a0 At 9 yrs old, he\u2019s not gullible so much as suggestible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou were adopted!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, YOU were adopted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I was the only one to come out of Mommy\u2019s belly, you and (the Human Tape Recorder) were adopted!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mind you, this is all at top volume (any point worth making is worth making really loud), and right in front of me and SOBUMD.\u00a0 Deciding I didn\u2019t really want to (A) deal with Number One Son getting all spun up, nor (B) go into a lengthy explanation of adoption and\/or their birth stories, I stole a classic line from Calvin and Hobbes, and announced that none of them were adopted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour brother was NOT adopted, we bought him from Sears.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(SOBUMD choked on her wine at this point.)\u00a0 The Reigning Queen of Pink thought that this was the most wonderful thing she could think of, and laughed marvelously while repeating it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not wanting to let her get too full of her pink self, I told her not to laugh, since we\u2019d purchased HER at K-Mart as a Blue-light special.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re <strong>all<\/strong> laughing, and I hear the Human Tape Recorder muttering something in the next room.\u00a0 \u201cWhat was that, Nordstrom-Girl?\u201d I yelled, thinking this would have been a logical progression:\u00a0 Full price for the first one, Sears for the value discount once we saw what we\u2019d gotten for the money, and finally the bargain hunting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Number One Daughter gives me The Look, as only an 11-yr-old can:\u00a0 \u201cI said I\u2019ll bet you\u2019re wishing you\u2019d paid more for her now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oh, snap!\u00a0\u00a0I mean, just\u2026 Damn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the myriad ways in which siblings will give each other shit, perhaps none is as timeworn and tested as the bid to de-legitimize one another by telling you that you\u2019re adopted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}