I did a bunch of cleaning last night; and by cleaning, I don't mean tidying up--my house was way beyond that... I threw a bunch of junk out and wiped off some shelves with some pretty thick dust on them--the house got a major overhaul. (And right now, my dad is outside fixing my deck! Hooray for handy dads! When he's done, we get to go color shopping and paint it!) As I was organizing and junking things, I discovered a little paper with some story ideas for a college assignment (just a note: it's been 2 years since I took this class and this little paper somehow made it through moving three times and a few other spring cleaning sessions). The class was a mythology class, and the assignment was to write a modern myth or legend. We could use something from our life or we could adapt an old myth and make it fit the times. So on my paper I had some ideas of legends and things from my life that I might adapt. Among them was the following true story:
I grew up with four brothers and one sister. There were a lot of crazy times, a lot of fights, but also a lot of good times and a lot of love. One day, when I was about eight years old, I was feeling particularly love-y and told my sister: "Roz, you're my favorite sister." The sassy six-year-old that she was just snickered and said, "Of course. I'm your only sister."
Well, I felt silly, so I started talking, spinning a tall tale: "No, you're not. We have an older sister who's older than Jeremy [the eldest child]. Her name is Jennifer."
Cleverly, Roz asked, "Why haven't I ever heard about her?"
"Mom doesn't like to talk about it," I replied. "Jennifer got pregnant so mom and dad kicked her out of the house, and she went and lives with her boyfriend, and she's just trouble."
I don't know where I came up with this story. I think I watched too many soap operas with my grandma. My mom would never kick any of her kids out of the house. I vaguely remember telling Roz at a later date or perhaps even that same day that there was no older sister named Jennifer--no older sister at all, in fact. I guess Roz never remembered me telling her, because about eight years later, I was chatting with Jeremy, telling him the little story I'd made up, and saying, "Wasn't that funny when I told Roz we had an older sister?" At this point Roz came into the room totally shocked: "You mean that wasn't true?!"
On the one hand, it was hilarious, but on the other hand, I wonder how much additional* childhood trauma I had caused my poor little favorite sister.
*As in, in addition to the usual sisterly amount.
2 comments:
I vaguely remember pulling similar tricks of this sort. And I'm happy that you have saved stuff like your story. One of my favorite things to do is go through my old high school/college stuff and see what I thought or did. On another note, wish I could have seen you more when I was down. My bad. Later-Abba
Oh my, you were the little tale spinner back then, now weren't you? It is interesting how memories like that resurface when you are cleaning out drawers and closets and you find things. I find myself in a daze, going back to my memory and reliving the moment. Amazing, too that you still had that piece of paper after all your moves and cleanings! Great post! :)
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