Clues - December 13, 2004

I like being vulnerable. I love talking in baby voice. I like to buy things for myself that remind me of my childhood. Yellow plastic tambourines, miniature dishes with kitties on them, sippy cups, and the holy grail of all things made in Taiwan, the My Little Pony. Last weekend I was in search of a few new ponies, so I went to the toy store with Tucker. We walked past a "Clue" game board and he said, "I bet you used to play this with your sister and piss her off because you always knew the answer."

I have one sister, SnootySisterSwan (AKA TheBunnySister). She is two and a half years older than I am. We have a great relationship now, but things weren't always smooth between us. My mother remembers that bringing me home from the hospital was tragic for her. At naptime she would hear blood-curdling screams and rush to my nursery only to find my sister petting me and saying "nice baby, nice baby" while three welts left by two and a half year old fingers rose on my forearm. From the very beginning she hated me.

As soon as I was old enough, I worshipped her. I would follow her around and mimic her outfits and voice, the way she moved and the expressions she used. When she got purple stirrup pants, I had to have them too. At bath time I would believe her when she told me that I should use my mother's conditioner as shampoo, and never questioned her assertion no matter how greasy my head got. When she said I would get cancer and die if I touched my "pee pee," I went a full year without doing it. I would carry her books home from school. I would even do her art homework, carefully drawing that duck or sailboat as poorly as I could so that her treachery wouldn't be discovered. She still hated me.

I couldn't take the hint. I kept following her around, doting on her and being protective. One of my earliest memories is of pounding a neighborhood boy in the balls for throwing a snowball at her. And when she came home from school crying one afternoon because the boy in her music class who played trumpet made fun of how poorly she played the violin, I got up from my "Sit N' Spin," clenched my fists and shouted, "You tell that jerk to shove his horn up his ass!" My mother promptly shoved a bar of Dove into my mouth. And though she laughed as she did it, I was forced to promise I would never again socialize with the welfare kids that lived across the street and ate frosting for lunch.

There are a lot of reasons to hate your adoring baby sister. For starters, she is always there; you can't turn around without tripping over her. She's annoying, uncool, and clingy, and just when you're desperately trying to impress your friends, she tells them what percentage of Americans are allergic to Nickel.

My sister expressed her frustration with me through competition. We were very competitive, and our favorite board game was "Clue." She was always the sultry and slightly whorish "Miss Scarlet," and I would flip flop between "Mrs. Peacock" and "Colonel Mustard." No joke. One game I would be a shorthaired sporty woman in comfortable shoes, and the next I would be a colonel. I was so confused.

We were very serious about "Clue." I was never allowed to shuffle the cards and put them in the miniature manila envelope. My sister would accuse me of cheating if I tried to. We would roll the dice and take our turns, always trying to skimp a few tiles when the other wasn't looking so that we could get into that Conservatory or Pool Room just a little bit faster. Our poker faces were unyielding. We would sit straight as boards, tightly gripping our dog-eared "Clue" cards until our hands got sweaty and funky. The phone would ring and neither of us would answer it. We risked the fury of my mother who was usually on the other line and fuming. We didn't care. Only the gravest emergency could pull us away from that board. There would surely be cheating if we let our guard down.

We would glean information from each other and then cracks would form in our poker face. My sister's pace would quicken as the game went on. She would get to the last room, the Dining Room and question, "Mrs. White with rope in the Dining Room?" I would be tentative. I didn't want to give up the information but I had no choice. I would answer and notice that her face lit up slightly. From that point on it was a mad fucking dash for those stairs in the middle of the game board.

I wouldn't even know who did it, or with what, or where it happened. All I knew was that I had to get to those stairs first. When I did arrive, the right answer was always in my head. I would pull it out of nowhere. My sister would take the cards out of the mini manila envelope and scream, "You cheated, you brat. I know you did!" She would stomp around the house and sometimes cry with frustration. Even though I adored her, I never yielded, because that's not how life works. Mrs. Peacock would never give up. She would solve that fucking crime, do ten more reps, fix a shelf, kiss her partner and then celebrate with a Coors Lite.

We played "Clue" at least a thousand times and I almost always won. How annoying. For her, that is.

Bitch.

Posted by at 9:16 PM

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Posted by: courtney at September 28, 2009 10:31 PM

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