My sister was in Portland recently for the Thanksgiving holiday (for any foreigners out there, this is the day when Americans celebrate having traded small pox for the land of the indigenous peoples of this area).

During the course of conversation, I learned that she and my father (with whom she stayed during the holiday week) had spent Friday night burning furniture and books in my father's fireplace.

It is my understanding that the conversation went something like this:

My sister: I feel like having a fire.

My father: Yeah. But the wood's downstairs, and I don't feel like going downstairs.

My sister: Why don't we burn the chair in the corner?

My father: What chair?

My sister: [pointing] That chair.

My father: We can't burn that chair!

My sister: Chicken.

My father: Maya, look - we're not burning that chair.

My sister: I dare you to burn that chair.

My father:  Forget it, Maya. That's a perfectly good chair.

My sister: I double dare you to burn that chair.

I guess that last line was what pushed my father over the edge, because the chair was chopped up and in flames within ten minutes.

Shortly after, my sister mentioned so nonchalantly, they burned some of my books, too.

"Do you remember some book you had in your room called The Four Gospels?" she asked.

"Had?" I replied.

"Oh - you do remember. We burned it. We also burned an encyclopedia that dad didn't like."

Take this small episode and extend it out so that it lasts about ten years.

Welcome to my childhood.

[Update: My sister just read the post and informed me that the chair was not chopped up and thrown in the fireplace. "We threw it in whole," she corrected me.]