Sibling Rivalry

This is the diary I found yesterday. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through it. Even though I was only about 9, the quality of the writing is slightly better than what I put here on a regular basis.

I have two younger sisters, both of whom now live far from Mathews. As the oldest sister, I was often put in charge of them, and this gave me an unnecessary license to boss them around. And torture them.

I will save the stories about how I bossed and tortured them for later. This is more about some of the minor flare-ups caused by irritation. You know…you live with someone for so long, there’s really not much else to do, little things start to irritate you, and because you are bigger and older you start things.

Such as World War III.

For example:

Saturday, January 26, 1974

Dear Diary,

Today it is raining. I came home from Nanny’s. When I got home I played with my horses. Middle Sister always cries when you touch her horse. She is a big crybaby (underlined so many times there is almost a hole in the page).All she does is cry. Today I just stood and looked at the rain.

-Chesapeake Bay Child

*I’m talking about plastic horses here. More importantly, if it’s true that I was only playing with my horses, then why would I be touching Middle Sister’s enough to make her cry?

Answer: Because I was the older sister and I could get away with it.
_____________________________________________

Or this:

Tuesday, December 23, 1975 (a year later)

Dear Diary,

Today I walked down the street with Nanny to go to the store. After that Mamma came and took me home. When I went to my room it was a mess. Middle Sister hadn’t made up the bed or anything. She likes to live like a pig. I just cleaned up my room the other day.

-Chesapeake Bay Child

*My grandmother Nanny lived in the next county over and had no car. We would have to walk about two miles to get to the grocery store. More importantly, the biggest pig in the family was me! If I did in fact clean that room up, it would have been the first and last time.

I did cruel stuff to both of my sisters. I can’t even tell you some of the things I did because they’re so awful. A less awful thing I did often, especially on long car trips, was to lick my hand and then wipe it on their arms or legs, any exposed patch of skin. This was usually because they were getting too close to me. They had crossed that invisible line that separated my territory from theirs. Then they’d holler, “Mamma, Chesapeake Bay Sister is licking me,” and start to whine and cry or something. If one of them licked me back? It was full-on war.

Many times my mother nearly had an accident in the lime green VW bus due to such fights going on in the back seats. The beauty of the bus was we were so far back she could not reach us. It is a wonder my poor mother has any marbles left after all those years of our fighting.

Now that we’re older, we have put all these silly tiffs aside. When we see each other, we don’t lick each other. I don’t touch their stuff.

I will say, though, that both of my sisters have this irritating habit of wearing too much lipstick ,and when they drink coffee or wine their lipstick marks are all over the glasses and cups (and I find the glasses and cups all over the house). They wear so much lipstick that sometimes even the dishwasher doesn’t get it off. And no way am I putting my hands in those glasses to wash that stuff out. No way.

That would be just like them licking me.