Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Star Feature: My Sister

My sister Tiffany has been pestering me for her star feature...so here it is.

(Earlier on Google Chat...)

Tiffany: Whatcha doin'?

Me: ...Finally working on your blog post. Ugh.

Tiffany: Don't sound so miserable doing it! >:(

Me: >:(

...It all started when I made the mistake of mentioning to Tiffany that I was planning on writing a blog post about her and illustrating bird pictures of our lives as siblings.

This was several months ago, before I got bogged down with a staggeringly long to-do list...which, admittedly, may have been the result of indolent procrastination on my part. So when I told Tiffany I had to keep pushing back her featured post, she communicated her displeasure in the most dramatic way possible.


My sister isn't a spotlight-seeker per se, but once you blurt voice any intention of casting her as the star of anything, she will clamp onto that verbalization and hold you to it until you make it happen.

So after receiving a collection of text messages bearing different variations of, "WHERE'S THE BLOG POST ABOUT ME THAT YOU PROMISED TO WRITE?? I WON'T ACKNOWLEDGE YOU AS A SIBLING UNTIL I SEE IT!"...I decided it's probably time to follow through with the promise I barely remember making.

To start off, a bit of information. Tiffany is four years younger than I am, and she was born during the peak of my childhood fat years (God, was I a porker). Up to that point, I had been a pampered (and very well-fed) only child, so learning of my mother's pregnancy was most unwelcome news.

 
For a single young child that had been lovingly spoiled by both parents for over three years, the prospect of engaging in sibling activities (such as sharing) was highly unappealing. Unfortunately for me, fetuses have a tendency to enter the birthing process no matter how much their older siblings hope they stay put in utero. And so in the summer of 1992, my mom went into labor at an ungodly hour of the morning.


My dad rushed my mom to the hospital, and I was left behind with my grandma. The sequence of events was very confusing to a 4-year-old kid because I had woken up to find that it was still dark outside, both my parents were in a panic, they then left the apartment at the same time, and no one had even fed me yet.

I was convinced they had abandoned me.


My grandma held down the fort and comforted me enough so that I didn't develop PTSD while my parents welcomed my sister into the world. A couple of days later, they brought her home to meet me.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Tiffany was pretty much the cutest baby ever. Even though she rarely smiled.


And being the jealous brat that I was, I put up a lot of resistance in approaching her.



I reluctantly padded over to her as she sat there on the floor and dribbled up at me. While the adults obliviously moved to another room to give me some bonding time with my new sibling, I decided to issue a greeting that wasn't exactly benevolent.










...I tried to smother my own sister with a pillow. If that doesn't win the Most Heinous Sibling Award, I don't know what would. I honestly don't remember doing this (my mom told me about it when I was at an age where I could comprehend guilt), so I'm not certain whether I was purposely trying to eliminate Tiffany or just trying to hide her under an oversized pillow and hope she'd disappear like a magic trick.

Either way, my intentions were pretty horrifying, so it was a good thing my grandma's intuition kicked in and told her that something was wrong. She sent my mom to check up on my sister and me.


And this is what she found.


To be continued...

Update [1/20/13]: I'd forgotten I had the second part already illustrated and partly written, so I'm just going to lump it with this post.

Picking up where we left off...

Right after I smushed my infant sister with a pillow, my mom walked in.


She freaked out.


And kicked my ass.


So after I got the spanking of a lifetime and was sentenced to three hours in the timeout corner without parole, I grew even more bitter about Tiffany's existence.


While most normal children would associate punishment with the act of smothering their defenseless siblings, I instead associated punishment with getting caught.

As far as my 4-year-old tubby butt was concerned, Tiffany was an intruder to my comfortable family environment. If I was going to have to compete with her for parental attention, she was going to be as miserable as I was.

And so, over the next several years, I terrorized my sister mercilessly.







Throughout her ordeal of having to put up with me, Tiffany maintained a surprisingly sweet demeanor. She did try to fight back a couple of times (which never got her very far), but she was overall a very loving and forgiving kid. It was very surprising. And kind of ridiculous.

Note [1/20/13]: This post was never finished, so the happy ending is that Tiffany and I grew up to become best friends. Even though she'll never let me forget the Dark Age known as our childhood. It's all good. The end.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was a fat kid too! I was always eating cereal and Nutter Butters.

There's something kind of disturbing about the drawing of bird-you eating a chicken leg... Your sister has driven you to cannibalism!

J. S. said...

Lol, I used to love Nutter Butters, too! My mom eventually had to put a lock on the snack cabinet so I couldn't reach them, haha!

I'm glad people caught the drumstick-in-hand part of that drawing...oh, the irony (and creepiness)!

Bodaciousboomer said...

You're not the most heinous sibling ever. My brother gets that award. He out me in the trunk of the car and went on a date.

That's heinous.