I don't know, does he like Coldplay?

(As I was re-reading yesterday's post it reminded me of a story my mother tells about my brother. I'll tell you now that my brother is engaged, to a woman. Enjoy.)

Growing up, my brother possessed a few traits that some may label as effeminate.

It wasn't so much the playing with dolls, or the shunning of anything sports related or the indifference he paid to typical masculine kid toys like Star Wars or G.I. Joe action figures.

But it may have been the baking.

My brother loved to bake things. He would stand on the counter in the kitchen while my mom worked about making brownies and cookies or anything, really. After measuring out an ingredient she would hand the tablespoon over to him, where he would dump it in with other other ingredients. Sometimes he would stir the ingredients up or he would flip the button on the mixer, to which he squealed with delight.

After the real baking was done, he would retire to the living room where he would don an apron and spend hours "cooking" up things in the fake wooden oven my grandfather built for him.

Quiet and soft spoken, B.G. was the opposite of me in almost every way. While I would storm around the room raising hell, my brother would mill about in the corner, baking.

When he was about four or five my mother was sitting in the kitchen talking to her brother about B.G.

Mom: "So, let me ask you a question."
Uncle Beer: "Sure."
Mom: "Do you think...and it's fine...but you do you think that B.G. may be...."
Uncle Beer: "What?"
Mom: "Do you think he may be.....gay?

My uncle started laughing.

Uncle Beer: "Oh no, not at all, I just think he's going through a ph-"

At that exact moment my brother came bounding into the room. His elbows were tucked in against his side, his arms were pulled back to his chest and his wrists were completely limp, bouncing up and down and flailing about as he ran past them.

My mother looked at my uncle.

Uncle Beer: "Well....."