The Nasty Sucker Contest: The Best of Sibling Rivalry

I'm going back to work, probably temporarily, but maybe more. My youngest sister, Tiffany has moved the furniture store location and now my father, whom she works with, is about to undergo major back surgery.

Dad's out of commission.

It's a two hour drive for me to work there. One way. I'll probably spend one night with Mom and Dad and work two consecutive days a week for a while.

I'm working for Tiffany. My youngest sister. This is so gonna suck, for more reasons than one.

The first reason is that Tiffany fires everybody. Every single person. Tiffany has no problem with the words "YOU'RE FIRED!" She's The Donald of Eastpoint, so from this point forward, I shall refer to Tiffany as The Biffy, because I've always called her Biffy and it flows better than The Tiffany...Maybe she actually fired Dad....

The second reason is that did I mention she's my little sister? Yeah, I know we're old, but that doesn't matter. The law of birth order is one we must follow, um, forever.

The Biffy has been my nemesis since the spring of 1973. I was five and a half years old when she came to spread her sunshine in our lives. She was fat, round, had jet black hair and blue eyes, all in sharp contrast to mine and Lacye's super-skinny, blonde and green eyes. She didn't match us. I was convinced she was some sort of reject because I couldn't imagine anyone actually wanting her, so of course a band of gypsies, on their caravan through Central Alabama, left her on our doorstep on that fateful spring day. And this would be the story that I fed her for years, with my sidekick Lacye agreeing, saying things like "yeah, gypsies....dirty gypsies....you're just a stupid dirty gypsy..."

The Biffy was cute, all smiley and happy.....

The Biffy was not left by gypsies.

The Biffy was Mom's favorite.

The Biffy was Dad's favorite.

The Biffy was MAMMA T'S favorite.

And this meant war. She could have those other two, but not Mamma T.

Lacye and I inflicted all sorts of horrid torment on The Biffy.

We bounced her to the moon on the trampoline.

We taught her dirty words and didn't tell her they were, um, dirty words.

We married her to a doberman in an elaborate garden ceremony and we made her wear his collar.

We stared at her without blinking once through every family dinner. For over ten years.

We licked lollipops, scrubbed them on the carpet of our mother's car floor and made her eat them. Lacye and I referred to this as The Nasty Sucker Contest because we competed to see who could make the Nastiest Sucker....

We called her "stupid" about 10,000 times over the course of our childhood.

We didn't let her ride shotgun, um....ever. The first time she saw the front seat of a car, she was driving it.

Of course for all the childhood trauma I inflicted upon her, she got me back even better when I hit adolescence.

She told Mom that I went to see Porky's instead of Chariots of Fire. Of course going into Chariots of Fire was social suicide, no self-respecting thirteen year old would've made that choice...My bff Kelli and I were looking all kinds of cool, with all the other cool kids, in line to see Porky's. We'd been anticipating the arrival of this flick for months. Every single one of us told lies to our parents, all of whom thought we were watching Chariots of Fire, playing in the other theater, but no, the cool people were in the Porky's line, including Kelli and me, which Tiffany and her little friend Amy witnessed, (on their way into Chariots of Fire....) and promptly reported this information to Mom. I was grounded for six whole weeks, a punishment that surely didn't fit the crime, especially since none of us actually watched the movie.

At the ripe old age of fifteen, I'd grown into a gangly yet slightly heavy teenager with braces. Tiffany was nine years old and Star Wars was the rage. Tiffany could do the "Yoda Voice" better than Yoda himself. She dressed herself in some sort of toga looking getup when she was en Yoda.

Given my less than stellar looks and the fact that Tiffany sat Indian Style at the foot of our driveway steps and made my boyfriend, who was cute and I wasn't qualified to have, fill out an application to enter our home, all in Yoda Voice and Toga, then she slipped the application into a box (with all the other applications, ummm....not).

I looked out the window and saw him talking to her, I saw the toga. Humiliation does not get much worse than that. He began to fill out the paper on his knee. She submitted the completed form into a slit she'd cut in the top of the box. Yoda en Toga granted him entrance. "You may enter now..."

It's amazing I ever got a second date.

So the next year when I started driving, I'd blast her eardrums out with incredibly awesome 80's music all the way to school.

This was a very long ride for The Biffy until she figured out that she could pin me to the steering wheel with her legs locked against the back of my seat...so....while driving.....pinned against the steering wheel, Loverboy cassette on highest volume, (she likes her tapes on ten...) and I am beating the crap out of her locked legs with my right fist.

Yeah, that's right, driving down the road. When we moved to Florida, we were doing this on bridges.

With habits like that, who needed texting?

So, here I am, about to go to work for Tiffany.

After she gets me down to minimum wage and works me like a mule, how long do you think it'll be until I hear the words...

"YOU'RE FIRED!"

But trust me, that won't be the end of it.....she may win this battle, but I'm still in the war.

I'd love to hear stories of your sibling torment, I know we weren't the only ones....and remarkably, as adults, all three of us get along, with only a slight amount of, ummm....drama.

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Our Vacations Require A Recovery...And Possibly An Intervention.

Details on the Latest Observation of the Decline of My Sanity, a.k.a. Life With Frank, will revolve around spring break.

"Break," to Frank, simply implies "breaking something." "Break" is a verb, not a noun. It is an action word. Break implies doing something, not um, sitting around on one's arse, as would be my definition. Unfortunately it is verb he often dabbles in. Last year, his spring break involved a separated shoulder. I am happy to report that this year there are no new broken bones.

I know this will come as a large surprise to those of you who follow me regularly. Frank and I do not vacation well together. As a matter of fact, I pretty much dread anything that could be labeled as vacation, requiring his presence.

As I often do while writing these posts, I keep the Webster's Dictionary/Thesaurus website open. I plugged "vacation" into the dictionary and it is a noun. It can be used as a verb, as in the act of vacationing...I plugged it into the thesaurus and got this:

breather, relaxation, respite, rest; interim, intermission, interval; feast, holy day, legal holiday; honeymoon; idling, loafing, lounging, slacking off.

Slacking off?

The work begins way before we even leave our house.

He packs the important stuff.

The wave runner.

The wakeboard.

The skimboards.

The ski boat.

The bicycles.

The skis.

The kneeboards.

The life vests.

The helmets.

The ice chest full of beer.

And God forbid it's a winter destination. You will not believe how much crap he tries to get on an airplane. Of course few things are as cumbersome as a boat.

And this year he tacked on our geriatric golden retriever, Dale, who is in need of medication three times a day. Dale might be old, but would still be willing to escape and kill some tiny, vacationing yorkie-type thing. Dale's a lot like Frank. There is not one single thing relaxing about him.

So, thank the good Lord, we drove separately to St. George, me with the kids in the van, Frank in his jeep, ice chest full of beer, bikes on the bike rack, towing a wave runner (no boat!) with the old-ass dog in the passenger seat and headed south. Do you know how many women looked at that getup and said "Thank God it's not mine. Thank God none of it is mine, not even that old-ass dog."

Let me tell you what he did not bring. Lounge chairs for the beach. He did not even think about this item. We are not in ownership of such a thing.

Hell, just looking at it made me tired, but tired as I was, I perform a little mental ritual that makes me laugh, every time I find myself in this situation. I sing the Tigger song in my head. It's my comic relief. The words are as follows:

The wonderful thing about Tiggers
Is Tiggers are wonderful things!
Their tops are made of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
They're
Bouncy,
Flouncy,
Trouncy,
Pouncy,
Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!!!

And one of the most wonderful things about Tiggers
Is I'm the only one

I'm the only one!

~~~~~

I am tired.

Already.

Yep, still in the driveway.

And this is because in the length of time it takes Frank to load up, trailer up, gas up, and whatever-else-up all his crap, somebody is loading up the non-essentials, like the food...the clothes...the toiletries...the kids.

By the time we got there and unloaded, I was already in worse shape than the dog and in much more need of medication.

And so we proceeded to, um, vacation...

Frank swam,

Frank rode the wave runner.

Frank skim boarded.

Frank went for bike rides.

Frank went for jeep rides.

I cleaned the house.

I fed the kids breakfast.

I fed the kids lunch.

I fed the kids snacks.

I fed the kids dinner.

I chased down the old ass, escaped dog. Six times.

I loaded the dishwasher.

I emptied the dishwasher.

I sunscreened the kids.

I hung out wet bathing suits.

I hung out wet towels.

I took a multitude of photos of Frank enjoying himself.

And at the end of the day I drank wine on the deck, giving me a grand total of four collective hours of vacation time.

So, after a fun-filled four days, which seemed more like forty-four days and aged me about two years, we are back. The wave runner is under the shed, the bicycles are back in the garage and I have about ten loads of laundry to do.

My God that was fun.

When are we going back?

Maybe by next time we'll have another dog, a puppy would be great. Or we can have another baby. Or we can invite other people and their babies and dogs to join us. The possibility for fun, recreation and relaxation is positively endless.

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