Day eighty one: justice has prevailed.

I was en route home tonight after a long day of serving tables when I got a call from my big brother. I'm not the only one in the family who is in the restaurant industry. Big Bro is a chef in British Columbia. He moved to Alberta the day after I turned 18 to work at the Chateau Lake Louise as a cook while also attending culinary school in Calgary -- a natural progression after working for a couple years a cook at Hooters.


Big Bro has since done very well for himself and is now some sort of an in-charge chef for a corporate restaurant in Vancouver. Right now he is living in Whistler for a few months while he oversees the opening of new restaurant. His job doesn't allow him the luxuries of getting holidays off so he won't be with the family for Christmas. I feel as if my mother is going to murder him for not being there on Christmas day.


Tonight, on my way home from a closing shift at (insert real name here), Big Bro called me with some news: he had finally come clean to my parents, who were on speaker phone with some of the family,  about the Poster Incident.


When I was six or seven and Big Bro was nine or 10 we got some sweet posters at the bookfair at school. His was of a red corvette, which is odd because he never was and still isn't into cars. He was a Lego kind of kid. My poster was of a basket of kittens or something. I hate cats but I love kittens. I'm sure it's cuteness was something along the lines of these kittens going down a slide:



When we got our posters home Officer Dad told us not to take them out of the plastic because he would get some frames the next day so we could hang our new art on out bedroom walls without fear of the posters being torn.


What you need to know at this point is that time was around the time that I learned that honesty is the best policy and that telling the truth had fewer consequences than lying. 


My brother's poster had somehow been taken out of the plastic and Officer Dad was not happy. He sat us down and asked which one of us had ripped open the plastic. I looked at Big Bro waiting for him to accept the responsibility but the only thing that came out of his mouth was "not me." 


How could this be? If he didn't do it, who did? 


I racked my brain trying to think of what could have happened and offered my thoughts. Maybe Officer Dad or my mom opened the poster. Maybe there was a gust of wind and somehow it was so powerful it opened the plastic? Did we have ghosts? 


Officer Dad informed us that since he was a police officer, he knew when people were lying. I decided at that point, even though I was innocent, if I took the blame he would be proud of me for owning up to "my bad deed." 


I fessed up and Officer Dad sent me to my room for the rest of the night while Big Bro got to hang out with some friends that were coming over for dinner that night. It was the first time I could remember Big Bro throwing me under the bus. 


Nice police work Officer Dad. 


It's nice to know 20 years later, when the threat of being sent to his room for the evening was no longer on the table, Big Bro was able to clear my name.