…the hood

To: Sis.ter@fam.out
You wiped the dust off the top of that can into the seat of your pants before you opened it! Mom and I do it too. Just for your information, if the can happens to already be opened, green beans or olives cascade down your butt to your socks. Just so you know. Love ya T.

Sisters laugh, cry, read each other’s thoughts and solve each other’s problems. We look alike, and have some of the same mannerisms. One week we blame Mom’s genes, the next, it’s Dad’s. In family photos, people say number one and three could be twins, but then, so could two and four, and three and five; well, but only if five had darker hair.

I think it’s the hair. We get the group rate on hair styling by doing each other’s. When it’s picture-taking time, all of us cram into the bathroom, primping and pulling, clipping and curling.
We have our own homes, complete with their own bathrooms, so we should come to the party ready. But tradition demands that everybody meet in the bathroom. The children squeeze in to stand on the edge of the bathtub and watch the primping parade in the triple mirror.

It’s not the preening, but the talking that’s important. The frenetic babble starts from the moment we meet. Women speak a requisite 25,000 words a day and we can do that much in the first fifteen minutes. It’s actually calmer than when we’re being charged by the minute.

The three sisters-in-law, one a fairly recent inductee, one middlin’ and the other, a long-timer, are right in the thick of things. The new one, of less than a year, disappears once in a while: I suspect find a spot with more oxygen to take a breather. But the others seem accustomed to the chaos and they dive right in.

The men avoid the melee completely, and rather than fight the tide, they spit-wash and dowse their combs at the kitchen sink.

We’re not cliquish. We can’t afford to be. Anyone that can brave the currents swirling at family gatherings is welcome. When fifty of us crest the swell, anyone who doesn’t drown becomes family.

My bachelor brother had to be cautious about introducing any new catch, because if they broke up, she may not be the one we released.

Dad believes in the old adage that fish and family stink after three days. He disappears and only after the maelstrom abates, does he emerge.

Reality Bite: Don't be messing with my sister.