My 3-year-old, Vampire Brother

This is a phone conversation between my brother and I last Friday:
"Hey, what are you doing this weekend?" he calls out of the blue.
I reply, "You're gonna be in LA? ... Why?"
"How'd you know I was gonna be in LA?"
"Um, you just told me."
"No I didn't."
"Why else would you be asking about my weekend plans?" I retort.
"Can't I just be curious?"
"You only call when you want something, so, No."
Thus began a week of sibling bonding...in a way.

Jeff spent the whole weekend with his friend out in Apple Valley (if you haven't heard of it, that's because it's on the way to Victorville, Big Bear and nowhere near LA) then he decided to grace my presence on Monday by coming to Sunset Gower, the Lot I work on, treating me to lunch and proceeding to turn into his three-year-old self by dashing through half the production hangers on the Lot. I told him that if he got permission to walk on the sets (sans shooting) he could, but he wasn't allowed to just bound into the hangers with an enthusiastic smile and hope they wouldn't kick him off. Luckily all the painters and construction crews that were putting finishing touches on the sets, didn't mind a big, wide eyed child, asking questions and touching everything in sight.

"Is there real alcohol in the bottles," Jeff asks as he grabs a Patron bottle off the shelf in Dexter's Quinn's house. "Ahhh, don't touch stuff," I squeak, "You're gonna mess up continuity." But Jeff's already popped the top and is sniffing the contents. "It's just colored water," he pouts. "I could have told you that with out you rearranging the set. Now, please put the bottle back." He jams the bottle back on the shelf and is off exploring another part of the hanger - the Hospital from Private Practice.

"Look, they even have cups that say the Hospital's name...Hum, what's through here?" he mumbles, opening a door past the reception area. As I freak out over Jeff possibly opening a door into a crew member working behind it, he's vanished from my sight. It's like his attention span just takes him on a magical journey of sporadic-ness that makes me want to strap a monkey backpack with tail leash to him and yank him away from things he shouldn't go near.

I find him walking through the White House from The Event. "This looks just like the real thing," He muses, making laps around the Oval Office. His excitement is contagious and pretty soon, I'm wandering through all the open (and closed) doors, trying to see how everything is laid out and musing over all the little details that make up the sets - notebooks filled with writing (not just the front few pages), the character's logo on the stationary and cups, picture frames with the actor's photos inside, etc.

After exiting the last hanger on the Lot, Jeff utters, "I think this has made the trip all worthwhile." And I'd have to say he has a point. It's kind of cool to be able to walk on the set of a show and see a mini version of the White House or the house of a character that you watch weekly. I guess I take for granted that I work on a Lot, but I never actually take advantage of what being on a set affords me.

I eventually had to go back to work, play time was over, so I sent Jeff to my house and headed back to my desk. Over the course of the next week, the main indications that Jeff was actually staying at my house was the fact that my hand soap, body wash, shampoo, and toilet paper decreased exponentially and when I left my house at 8am, I'd look into the living room and see a giant lump on the floor, covered in a blanket. Jeff would quietly make his way into my living room somewhere between the hours of 2am and 6am, leave after I was gone and sometimes, after my roommate was gone in the mid afternoon.

I had asked Jeff on the third day of staying with me that his penance for coming and going at his leisure and using all my stuff was to buy me a new hand soap. When I arrived home that evening there was a quarter filled bottle of hand soap sitting next to my bathroom sink. My text message to my brother went like this: "What the hell is up with giving me a quarter full thing of soap. Really? A new bottle is like $2. Cheap bastard." I had thought he stole it from some bathroom he visited during the day, but after my roommate saw the soap in my bathroom, she goes, "I was wondering where the kitchen hand soap went."

He eventually bought me a proper, full bottle of hand soap and a replacement bottle of body wash while complaining it cost him $6. Poor baby. I don't know what he was doing with all my cleansing products, but most were 80% full before he visited me and when he left 7 days later, about 20% full; a lot of the items were concentrated. Overall, Jeff turned out to be one of the best houseguest I've had stay with me. My roommate even said he was cool because you never saw him. He just slept there, but didn't notably effect our house environment, except for the depleting cleaning products.