Banal Simultaneous Sister Bashing

It's very exciting, writing on someone else's blog. Usually I live here.

It makes me feel dangerous, like I'm undercover, and I wish that I had a Groucho Marx mask so I could run around representing Freedonia and calling out sweet burns and confusing the crap out of people. "Now, what is it that has four pairs of pants, lives in Philadelphia, and it never rains but it pours?"

So for now, much like Blues left Arizona, I've expatriated from Sometimes I Make Lists. I know. I know. It's like, the worst title ever. I deal.

On with the blog.

My sister, the Yellavitch, is like this twenty-one year old turkey carving prodigy. She’s a brain surgeon, but operates on tender roasted birds. And she goes all blue and soft while she does it. Not that she turns blue. She's calmer than normal. She moves like water, if water was steady, precise, and methodical, and really fucking good at carving turkeys.

But you give her a pumpkin, and her artistry disappears completely. Instead of an eerie grinning jack-o-lantern, you get a useless, gaping hole.

"What is that?" I slide over to the kitchen table, where her holed pumpkin sits. “Not like, a mouth or something?” I inspect the pumpkin. Poke it a little. “You could give it teeth so it looks like the Sarlacc.”

“No, it’s a circle, and I don’t know what that is." She's separating seeds from the pumpkin guts and trying to ignore me.

"You know, the giant mouth in the middle of the desert. And then we could put that Luke Skywalker action figure in there, so it's like he's getting swallowed and all, 'Ahhhhh!' you know?"

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I made a circle. Deal with it.”

“But wouldn’t it be awesome if it was the Sarlacc?”

“No one would get that. I don’t get it.”

“You totally know what I’m talking about.” I pick up the knife and touch it to the pumpkin. “Return of the Jedi. I’ll show you.”

“How do you even know that? How did you get to be such a dork?” She grabs my hand. “Can’t you just leave it alone?”

“I’m fixing it.”

“It doesn’t need to be fixed. It’s a fucking circle.”

“But this would be so cool. Everyone would love it.”

“No, you think it’ll be better.”

“It will be.”

“Get your own pumpkin.”

“Yeah, I fucked it up. I tried to make the Bat Symbol and it just looks like an eclipse or something.”

She laughs at me. “You would. Don't touch it. No one knows what the Sarlacc is.”

“Yeah, but then, when someone does know---“

“You’ll know that person is worth talking to.”

I point the knife at her. “Exactly.”

“Stop testing people, not everything is a test.”

“Oh, whatever, you test people too.”

“No I don’t.”

I gesture towards the pumpkin and trace a circle in the air with the knife. “You made that circle out of spite.” Jab. "You knew I wouldn't be able to deal with it being just a hole."

She tries to hide her smile, but she can’t fool me. She’s my sister. “Spite is completely underutilized as a method of accomplishment. And it pisses you off.”

“But spite is my thing.”

“I learned it from you, butthead.”

“Whoa. Language.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She snatches the knife from my hand. “Leave my pumpkin alone. Why do you always do this?”

I start helping her separate the seeds. “Because I can.”

"Stop trying to correct whatever I do. You never do this to Katsisch."

"That's because she's meaner than I am. She's a bitch."

Katsisch yells from her lair in the basement. "STOP TALKING SHIT ABOUT ME."

"She really is a bitch," Yellavitch agrees with me. "And you know what? She would only be able to do a circle anyway. Because of her tiny t-rex arms."

"I CAN FUCKING HEAR YOU."

Yellavitch yells down the stairs. "If you want to fight, stop watching The Tudors and get up here." She looks at me. "Do you realize she's been watching that show for three days straight?"

"She's a history person, you know."

"No, she just likes the guy from Bend it Like Beckham."

"Creepy weepy eyes Myers?"

"He is so hot."

"Gahh, no. Seriously? He always looks like he's on the verge of tears. It's annoying."

Katsisch's voice echoes up the stairs from the basement. "DO NOT TALK ABOUT JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS LIKE THAT."

"CAN YOU DO ANYTHING WITHOUT YELLING?" Yellavitch hollers back.

"Obviously not," I say and join Yellavitch at the stairs. "JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS CUTS HIMSELF BECAUSE OF YOU."

"SHUT UP." Damn, she is shrill.

Yellavitch has one. "THE OTHER DAY I KILLED A MAN JUST BECAUSE HE LOOKED LIKE JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS."

And now the Dog is having a barking conniption.

"I WANT TO WATCH THIS."

It's so easy to piss her off. I walk back over to the table. "That really is a good looking circle." I face the pumpkin towards Yellavitch. "How is it that you're so good at carving turkeys and such crap at carving pumpkins?"

"You are an awful, awful sister."

"I'm better at being a sister than you are at carving pumpkins."

"Worst. Sister. Ever."

“You know what would make me the best sister ever?”

“If you say you turning that pumpkin into the Star Wars mouth thing I will stab you ‘til you’re cold.”

“I will gut you like a fish.”

“I will swat you like a fly.”

“I will roast you like a turkey.”

“I will kill you ‘til you’re dead.”

“DAMMIT.”

That means she won.

"WILL YOU GUYS STOP IT? I CAN'T HEAR THE TV."

"SHUT UP, KATSISCH." Ahhh, banal simultaneous sister bashing.

...