BETTY ANDERSON - The PERFECT Sister

“It's not that mom and dad don't love you, it's just they love me more.” 

Betty Anderson

BETTY ANDERSON

    Having a sister can really fuck you up. It's not the physical torment that gets to you if at all there, it's the emotional warfare that ensues. My sister would walk to the ends of the earth for me, throw herself in harms way to save me. She loves me and I love her. That being said, growing up with a sister, is not easy. It complicates everything in one's life (specifically, mine).

    The only sibling I have is a sister. She is three years older than me; has her PhD, a beautiful "family of her own" and lives in a perfect cookie cutter neighbourhood.  Her house is lovely, and she has an amazing career at a University. She has never done drugs, tried smoking, or had a size of pant I could fit more than one leg into.

    The battle of sibling rivalry is over, it's clear, I lost. I get it, I'm single and in my thirties, I have no children, I live with my cat in a one bedroom apartment in a part of town that features drunk people on my front step and a phone booth outside I can hear people using to make "deals".

     As I have gotten a wee bit older and somewhat wiser, I do my best not to compare myself to her. We are both interesting and unique and all that other 1980's goodness I was raised on. I am thankful for the life I have, even if it looks a bit different than hers.

    My sister made an excellent example of the textbook first child (which I am sure she would have some rant about how I am generalizing, but damnit I am going with it). She is neat and tidy, responsible, bossy, and ambitious. I am messy and dirty, 70% responsible, easy going and laid back (the nice way of saying lazy). 

     When we fought as children she would threaten to trash my room, only to open the door and see I had done it for her (previously and unknowingly). When I was feeling really mean, I would go in her room and move one tucked corner on her perfectly made bed and she would crack.

      Okay, so on paper she seems perfect. My sister has an impressive list of achievements that would almost make you think she would be stuck up and impossible to have a conversation with, indeed that is wrong.

      She's completely off her nut.

      I laugh when I realize she is Dr. Anderson (yes, she kept her last name). This "doctor" once wiped butter on my face at a family dinner, dangled spit over my pillow threatening that she would let it drop (many...many times), and sang to the tune of macho man : "fatso fatso MAN" while pointing at me during a reach for a second helping at dinner.

       The same important educated sister of mine, once turned to her husband during a Leon's commercial and yelled "HEY! It's the LEONS!" making reference to the one off the highway just outside of our hometown.

        Her husband said "it's just A Leon's, they all look like that."

        I can't drive past it now without yelling "Hey, it's the Leon's, from the commercial" no matter who I am in the car with. She's smart, but the people in my family sometimes say really dumb shit,  genetics are a tough thing to fight. 

        My sister and I share a bond over silly humour. It is not uncommon for either of us to receive a call from the other, where the caller can barely speak due to laughter. Usually it was a story of someone falling down, or farting, basic stuff. Often it was about a funny commercial or video clip (thank you Bob Saget for making that shit popular).

        While working in Banff one summer, I got a phone call from my sister who was in Ontario. She could hardly breath, and started rambling about a marching band out of no where in a lotto commercial. She told me, it was a guy relaxing next to a lake, and out of no where a barge comes by with *insert her imitating a marching band here* a marching band on it announcing the next jackpot amount. I immediately pictured it, and joined laughing.

     Some weeks later I was watching TV with my work crew, and the commercial came on. I burst into laughter and all but one in the room joined in. I looked at the one guy not laughing and he said "I don't get it." I immediately ran to the phone, dialed my sister, and through deep giggles told her what my friend said.

      As soon as I finished my "I don't get it" we both said "oh - he walked into the bar!!" (see My Mother - The One Woman Band post)

      My family can be really mean to each other, but, no that's about it, we can be really brutal. Dr. Anderson, went to school for psychology, and it's no question why. She needed to figure out the lunatics she was forced to cohabit a dwelling with for over two decades.

     Perhaps my sister became interested in testing theories on the human condition because her and I were tested on as children. My mother and father constantly tested us.

     Like any other sibling on the planet, my sister was a jackass sometimes. Sure she made fun of my headgear, and told my boyfriends embarrassing stories about me. Sure, she bit me the first night I came home as an infant and constantly drew the line down the middle of the car more on her side.

      She's also someone I can call whenever, about whatever. She is a loving sister who has helped me through dark moments in life and always supported me no matter what.

      When I was in grade one, my sister grade four, kids were throwing stones at me one morning before the bell rang. My sister marched right up to the group of grade eight boys and said, "You leave my little sister alone!"

      They did. No matter what, she's got my back...especially right before she pulls my pants down.