Sweet sister stories

My younger sister, Katie, is 26 today.

I hope you'll all join me in wishing her a happy birthday.

And in honor of her big day, I thought I'd tell you a couple sweet sister stories about the two of us.

Haha. Just kidding. We don't have a lot of sweet sister stories. We were the kind of sisters that fought a a lot growing up. Like fought, with weapons. There was occasional bloodshed. I remember one particularly jarring incident in the back of a minivan that left me bleeding quite profusely from the ear. Girl was feisty. But let's be honest. I was kind of a bitch, too.

Anyway, in addition to ear-scratching, there was also biting, hitting, kicking, cursing, and hair-pulling. God bless my mother's heart. I would have given us both up for adoption. But not mom. Nope, she was a trooper.

Anyway, 26 years ago today, I became a big sister, and I apparently took the responsibility very seriously. I immediately took it upon myself to make sure that baby got fed. I'm not sure how I got my two-year-old mitts on one, but the story goes that I attempted to force-feed Katie a tuna fish sandwich when she was freshly home from the hospital.

Over the past two-and-a-half decades, she's gotten her revenge.

Like the time I went to visit her at college, and she locked me out of her dorm and then gave me a black eye. True story. I may or may not have done something to deserve it. I can't remember.

Another time, she forced me to ride every roller coaster in an Ohio amusement park in one afternoon. And then demanded we go to Outback Steakhouse, land of the Blooming Onion, for dinner. Pregnant women have nothing on my nausea that night.

But it hasn't been all fights. There were times, over the years, when we'd just forget all of our differences and completely come together in sisterhood. Like the time we forged an alliance against a naive babysitter, and told her that she was not our mother, and her attempts to exercise her authority would not be tolerated, thankyouverymuch.

When my parents got home and asked her how things had gone, the babysitter burst into tears.

Sucker.

Happy Birthday, Sister. Thanks for the memories.

I love you.