Every family has at least one oddball. In our Phamly, we had four. Big Brother Pham has minimal quirks and eccentricities making him the closest to normal and, therefore, our black sheep. Literally. He works in construction so his skin is a lot darker than his sickly office worker sisters. In fact, one time he came to pick me up from the airport and I walked passed him thinking he was Maori. He let me walk pass because I looked like an English ranga and not his Vietnamese sister at the time.

Big Brother Pham is always pointing out our oddball gene. Like the time Little Sissy Pham and I were singing Jingle Bells at the top of our lungs in bed at night. Big Brother Pham came storming in because our squeaky voices were keeping him up, to yell, "Why are you singing Christmas carols? IT'S NOT EVEN CHRISTMAS!!!" It didn't shut us up but we sang a little quieter after that because he had a good point.

Big Brother is also the only Pham sibling who can do anything practical. He can fix fences, build computers, install toilets, make babies, replace door hinges, tie ropes, raise babies, move a house. Me: I injured my wrist putting together an IKEA bed and continue to bruise my legs every week by walking into the bedframe. I do slightly better than Little Sissy Pham who was once bedridden with 20+ stitches in her knees because she tripped on her own pants and landed badly on her knee. Then while she stayed home waiting for that knee to heal, she walked into her own IKEA bedframe and smashed her good knee, requiring another dozen stitches.

Things like this just don't happen to Big Brother Pham. He's survived flipped cars, knife attacks and my road map directions - things that would kill any lesser Pham dead.