Today my sister turns 21. She is the youngest of the three of us.
In honour of this landmark, and the fact that she’s just graduated and bought her first car, I thought I’d commemorate her induction into adulthood with this list of things I have done to annoy her over the last 21 years.
- My sister really doesn’t like being wrong. Once, my brother and I pretended that she had told us to only ever call her Fountain, which made her furious because she knows this has never happened. This started about 8 years ago. It has not gotten less funny.
- When she was little, my brother and I convinced her that Scream lived in my mom’s dressing room.
- She only ever wears her hair in a ponytail. Years ago, I started this thing where I’d wait till she’d done her hair, then ask if I could borrow her hairgrip and very quickly pull off the one she was wearing. This has been going on for almost a decade and it’s now at the point where, wherever we are, if I say the words “Can I borrow…?” she immediately lunges for her hair, bumping into people and knocking things over.
- This is an extract from a list of names I am not allowed to call her in public. When she started high school she wrote them down in a list and presented me with it, with strict instructions. There have been some additions since:
Round
Roundy
Roundero
Roundton Abbey
The Abbatoir
Hot Feet Shabalala
Patches O’Hoolihan
Squiddles McDee
Squangers McFlangers
Leatherfoot
- Whenever her car isn’t working and I have to drop her off, I do so right in from of the entrance and then follow her super slowly, continuing a very loud conversation from the window.
- Whenever her car isn’t working and I have to fetch her, I do that thing where I start driving off just as she reaches the door handle, and then just as she catches up I head off again, until eventually she’s just jogging alongside the car.
- When she’s trying to be cool in the car, I recite the lyrics to rap/RnB songs in a posh English accent. Most successful in this regard are Ciara’s Oh and anything by Kanye West.
- She used to be really into The OC. I once told her I thought Ryan (Ben McKenzie) was Australian, possibly because he looks so much like Russell Crowe. She completely disagreed, saying “Just because someone looks like an Australian person, doesn’t meany they’re Australian.” When I found out that he wasn’t Australian after all, I said “Well, that’s what I was trying to tell you – he clearly isn’t Australian. You kept insisting he was Australian. It’s like you wouldn’t hear reason.” This joke has been renewed over the last decade every time either Russell Crowe, The OC, California or Australia has come up in conversation.
- When she’s working really hard or is especially tired, I start this thing called “Imagine If My Name Was”. It literally involves me saying “Imagine if my name was Steve. Imagine if my name was Latifah. Imagine if my name was Rhema Church” and other variations until she explodes with rage.
Here’s to the next 21 years of me being a bit of a dick. Happy birthday, Fountain.
theantilaugh 