Clothes? Check! Crucial hygiene products? Check (except the swabs, I always forget to buy them)! Cell phone and mp3 player? Totally check! Annoying and stressed brother? Unfortunately, check. It’s time to go to the airport!

This is how the story usually begins when my brother and I go to the airport. At the beginning, all seems a little pointless: always visiting the same island (Madeira, an island of tourism and nothing more), with the same person (that uninterested and clumsy brother of mine), and always at the same time of the year (in the summer, when I want to hit the beaches, drink Madeira, and listen to the ravings of Madeira’s democratically-elected President Alberto João Jardim, who has been in power since 1978). Honestly, it’s funny to spend some time with my family who I don’t know very much. And of course the worst part is the flight.

The last time we traveled to Madeira was three years ago. As my brother and I boarded the plane, he said he was very thirsty. He asked me for water and I told him he had to wait. It was actually a very hot that day, and I noticed he was sweating a lot. I could also see that he was a little nervous. I asked him why and he said that he was embarrassed because of his perspiration. I didn’t see why that would be a problem.

When we got into our seats, he sat down very quickly with a sigh of relief. I asked him if everything was all right.  He finally said, “I’m an unlucky person, that’s all.”

I was confused until he said, “Look at my shorts!”

I was shocked! He was totally wet, as though he had peed himself. The only thing I could do was laugh uncontrollably. I laughed so loud that people nearby stared at us and saw my brother’s clothes. He was very embarrassed and told me to stop and that’s what I did (it was something hard to do but I managed a way to stop it: imagined myself in his place).

I told him it was nothing, that it could happen to anybody (“even me, on a hot school day”). In order to make it up to him, I ordered a big bottle of water. He was apathetic. I was smiling. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to punish me for laughing. He didn’t like me at all at that exact moment. It wasn’t definitely one of our best moments together.

Today, I’m actually waiting for his revenge. I know that at some point in the future, on some plane, he will get me back. That’s simply how brothers work.