Whenever I go out with my sister, people will inevitably ask, "Which one of you is adopted?" while looking right at me. Truth be told, we are biologically related; same mom, same dad.
But if you pick out a Bunny feature, the opposite is found on the BunnySister. Take my birthing hips, BunnySis has none. She comfortably wears a size two. My nose is wide, her nose is long, my hair is straight, her hair is curly, my shoulders slope, her shoulders are square. I keep wondering how much either of us bears resemblance to the mailman, but I'm afraid that he will look like me and be very perverted and bad with the phone.
The same is true of our personalities. I am spastic and artistic, and she is mellow and straight laced. She's a media buyer for christ's sake.
In my freshman and her senior year of high school, we were in Marching Band together - cute little twirler girls. That was the year Disney invited our band to perform on their "Big Red Boat" to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Bahamas. BunnySis bought lots of outfits, whereas I debated the ethics of backing a celebration of the American arrival of one of the most insidious bastards in human history. But my mom bought me an outfit or two and I caved. Twirling is insidious too. I had no room criticize.
We caravanned in four busses from Western, New York to Cape Canaveral, Florida where we boarded the "Big Red Boat" to steel drum music along with what seemed to be ten percent of what the ship was capable of holding. There were more smelly Minnies and Goofys than there were passengers. Once boarded, we were brought into the bowels of the ship and instructed to unpack. Had this been the Titanic, we would have been fucked.
We performed "Anchors Aweigh" on the deck of the ship as it left harbor. We wore tap shoes and sailor hats and played the spoons. I figure this admission is no more embarrassing than coming clean on singing the 'Lonely Goatherd' in a bar. So fuck it.
After the performance we were made to stand in life jackets at our "muster stations" for two hours. This did not make us confident in the ship's crew. I also noticed that on the deck above us there were people in very nice clothing enjoying cocktails with no life jackets on. It sucks to be steerage.
That night we ate exotic fruits and all got gas. I tried caviar and vomited on a lounge singer's shoes. Luckily she wasn't in them.
The next day, we docked in Nassau. A barrage of native ladies attacked us upon arrival, "Pretty lady want me to braid her hair?" They were running their fingers through my hair and loading me up with necklaces that were free except for the "five dollar donation per necklace." Little boys were diving for Conch shells on the docks. They were so cute, I blew most of my trip money tipping them.
We boarded a smaller boat and set out for Disney's private Island. We lounged on the beach and in the trees all day, and I continually slathered myself in SPF40. It did little to stop the burn. I'm Irish.
However, my sister and her friends decided to lay out all day in Bahaman sun with oil on their skin. This was okay if you were one of her friends, ie. Sicilian, but not so great if you were my sister, ie. IRISH. My friends and I watched her from the safe shade of the palm tree hammocks as she cooked. I approached her many times to no avail. She wouldn't listen. And being that she was a Senior and I was only a lowly Freshman, she was much annoyed. By the end of the day, she looked like a pig roast. I ended up desperately screaming "YOU HAVE NO MELANIN!" but she ignored me.
On the way back to "The Big Red Boat," she didn't look so jovial. She was sitting on the floor of the smaller boat with her eyes closed. Someone gave her water.
At dinner, she arrived in blisters. She looked miserable, though none of us was in a good mood. The boat was headed back to Cape Canaveral and had hit a pretty vicious storm. Water glasses were being pulled from the table by the wave action. She said nothing, and ate nothing, and half way through dinner she got up and slumped out of the dining room.
After dinner my friends and I went to the dance club. I decided to check on my sister, took a key from her roommate, and headed to the belly of the ship. On the way to the elevator I noticed that passage to the outer decks was prohibited. The wind was too bad.
I found BunnySis passed out on her bed. I woke her up and made her drink water, then went back up to the dance club. It was on the dance floor that I first heard the sirens that meant we all had to go to our muster stations for an emergency.
I made my way back to her room as fast as I could through the crowds of people on their way to their stations. Everyone was clamoring for a life vest. There was moldy canvas and people everywhere in a panic, and the sirens were deafening. But when I finally got to an elevator and into the lower levels of the ship it was silent, so silent I could hear the waves crashing into the portholes on the floors above my sister's room.
I woke her and told her that there was an emergency. She sat up, and with eyes half closed, she said "I gotta go to dinner. I gotta take a picture." Her cheeks looked like two overcooked weiners on one of those 7-11 mini-rotisseries.
She had a ponytail tied an inch behind her hairline so that her hair fell into her face. She got up and walked to the other side of the room where she found a bottle of after-sun aloe moisturizer, squeezed a large amount into her palms and then applied it to her hair as if it were gel. Her pajama top was unbuttoned to her waist.
"I gotta go to dinner. I gotta take a picture." Her pajama shorts were crammed into her ass crack, and her tits, two white beacons in a sea of precancerous vermillion, were flopping loosely about as she picked up her camera and walked out the door. I told her to stop, but she zombied around the corner, her greasy ponytail dripping all the way.
"Wait! Where are you going?" I shut the door and fumbled with the lock. Thirty seconds later, I looked up and she was gone.
I took the elevator to the top floor of the ship. The panic had died down. Apparently a trigger-happy crew member had flipped the emergency lever for no reason, which was why it got quiet in the lower levels of the ship. However, my panic did nothing but rise. My sister was crazy, topless and missing on a boat during a bad storm. I formed a search party. My sister's shitty Sicilian friends were too busy eating pizza to be bothered with her whereabouts. They're obese now, so yay for Kharma. Only my own friends joined me in the search, and as we combed the boat, we ran into witnesses.
My friend Jennie: "Yeah, I was cutting through the dining room and I saw her sitting on the floor. She was just sitting there taking pictures. It was weird."
We checked the dining room, but she wasn't there. On the way to another floor we ran into another witness.
Good Samaritan: "We found her. She was lying on the floor of the elevator going up and down. We took her to her room"
Bunny: "Is she okay?"
Good Samaritan: "Well, aside from the cancer she'll have someday, she's fine."
The next day she was well rested and crusting over. She had no recollection of the night before. The camera's film had been mysteriously "exposed" that night leaving us all to wonder exactly what BunnySis had done, as well as why the primitive brain is so obsessed with photographing exotic fruits.
To this very day she refuses to believe my, Jennie's, or the Good Samaritan's stories of that fabled big red evening on the "Big Red Boat."
03.02.05 / BunnySis Strikes Back
"I HATE YOU. Mom said you are the mailman's daughter. Go to hell!"
She also said, "Mine was the yellow Chuck E. Cheese cup!" This reference will be explained tonight, as soon as I can scribe it in a way that fully captures the lack of justice I was shown by my family. Oh they will pay someday.
Posted by jlgolson at 9:26 PM