The Junior League vs. Mosh-pit

I just got off the phone with my sister. She is haughtily entering an airplane with a nanny and two children behind her. “I’m getting on the plane right now. The party is tonight. I hope you didn’t forget. Get to my house as soon as you can after work. Ok, gotta go. Bye.”

I hung up the phone and rolled my eyes in one single movement. It’s my “Sister is a snob” routine. She’s been a pompous handful since the 3rd grade. For Meme only Izod and Ralph Lauren would do. She carried the Preppy Handbook around like a Hari Krishna strangles flowers. Growing up everything was a combination of pink and green. She decorated her room with antiques and created drawing after drawing of Vogue patterns for preppy people. I think at this point I was still eating dirt in the backyard for fun and my room resembled something completely primitive.

In high school she dated one of the richest boys in Houston. Not an easy task in that town, but she had her way. She flew out to their family ranch on the private jet monthly. When the boyfriend got sent to boarding school, a limo would arrive to drive her to meet him on the weekends. Unfortunately, my parents offered Meme a pinto for her 16th birthday. All I can remember about that day was her crying in her room, and yelling that she would rather walk than drive something so horrendous. Eventually they gave in to her distress and bought her a baby blue Volkswagen. When I was 16 I wrecked my first car in 12 hours, and ended up driving my dad’s pickup truck with a camper on it. The camper had pictures of labs painted on it.

In college she joined a sorority. Evidently swallowing live fish and sitting in a baby pool of animal feces was a small price to pay for the company of such fine women. Regardless she went to all the Greek parties and actually “dated” men. They would come the apartment and pick her up, and then return her around 1 am on a late night. She developed a fondness for Blue Narcosis and Christian Ministry groups. On any given night you would either find her at the Green Parrot, or the youth hall with a bible in her hand. When I was in college I was drinking tequila and going to punk shows with my atheist friends, and my fashion sense leaned to either dog collars or pooka beads. A “date” to me meant I met a boy at bar and spent the next three days in his bed.

Before I was married she would set me up with people who were accountants or engineers. Roll the eyes, do the routine. Who ever thought I would grow up to be an accountant? Today she frequents resorts armed with a nanny for the kids, and I roll down to the loudest rock show I can find. At the end of the day, she’s the first person I call to tell her what’s going on in my life.

Of course she gets the watered down version, but she knows what I’m saying. She’s loved me through all of my stages, just like I still love her despite the fact she wore plaid shorts. Days come like today, when she’s pulling me to a party where I will basically be ignored the entire evening by people who consider themselves better than I am. I’ll be the last person there helping her clean up, thinking what a raw deal it is to be her sister some days. Then she’ll look at me, roll her eyes at me and ask me why I won’t go to church with her on Sunday.

Then a crisis comes and argyle sock and Skinny Puppy albums be damned, we will be drinking a glass of wine and crying together. Laughing at what a twit we both are, and how lucky we are to have one another.