Leech

It's a miracle that my sister isn't a serial killer yet.

I put her through so much shit when we were little. When she was 5 or 6 (and I was 11 or 12), I once told her that she was adopted, and that Mom and Dad wanted to return her because she was defective. I put a stamp on her forehead, and had her out on the curb packed and waiting for the mailman, tears be damned.

Mom wasn't too happy with me then. I like to think she was laughing on the inside. Once Dad was done laughing (and after getting a quelling look from Mother), I was sent to my room (seriously, they thought that was a punishment? My books were in my room), presumably to think over my most grievous error in judgement and taste.

I schemed instead.

I remember romping around the neighborhood with my friends, Leech (my sister) trailing behind. We'd ride our bikes and she'd attempt to keep up with her brand new scooter, because she refused to learn how to ride a bike.

We outran her every time.

I taught Leech many things when we were little. I taught her how to dig for worms, where the best spot in the creek was to catch minnows, how to avoid crazy old Mrs. McCluskie's dog whenever cutting through her yard. I also taught her not to eat yellow snow.

She still hasn't thanked me for that.

We were raised differently. When I was younger, my family didn't have a lot of money. I remember the electricity getting shut off, or us not having any heat in the wintertime because we couldn't afford to fill the oil tank up. My father has his own business now, and it took off when Leech was young. So she never went through any of that (thank God). She never knew what it was like to do without. As a result, she's quite spoiled (I think my parents kind of overcompensated a smidge). I'm the frugal spendthriftyish one (or, as she likes to call me, the Scrooge), and she burns through money like it's going out of style.

As I write this, she's getting ready to go out with her friends. It suddenly occurs to me that my baby sister is growing up, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. She's in college - attempting to procure a business degree.

Her grammar still sucks.

We still fight. We still pretend to hate each other. And yet...there's a sort of camaraderie that wasn't there when we were younger. It's most unsettling.

So I'm watching her go out the door now, to go hang out with her "friend that's just a coworker" (that pays for all her food, movie tickets, etc). She's all grown up, and she can take care of herself now.

But if he hurts her, I have a hockey stick, and I'm not afraid to use it.