Today is my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Beth! I’m going to celebrate by telling embarrassing stories about her in a public forum because I didn’t get her a gift yet (I’m sure she’s not surprised by my lack of a timely gift).
Beth is three years older than me. Beth’s best friend, Lisa, is three years older than her. When we were growing up, mom forced Beth and Lisa to let me tag along with them a lot. They hung out mostly with Lisa’s crowd, which meant I was frequently with kids six years older than me. I was exposed to many things much earlier than I should have been. You can probably tell where this is going.
People mark their lives by significant events: before Kennedy was shot, or when the Twin Towers were still standing, or it all went down during OJ’s low-speed chase. My life has two parts: before, and after, this moment of truth in the living room.
I was amusing myself, playing records and quite possibly pulling down the pants on Raggedy Ann and my sister walked in.
Beth: I have to tell you something.
Me: What?
Beth: It’s important, and you can’t tell Mom and Dad.
Me: What is it?
Beth: I’m serious. I won’t tell you unless you promise you won’t let them know you know.
Me: Know what?
Beth: Promise! Or I won’t ride bikes with you ever again. I won’t hang out with you at the pool.
Me: Okay, okay, I promise! What can’t I let them know I know?
Beth (looks over both shoulders to make sure we’re still alone): There isn’t a Santa Claus.
My stomach sank and I felt like my heart was ripped out. My whole world shifted. I responded the only way I knew how.
Me: Nuh-uh!
Beth, flipping her hair: Yuh-huh.
Me: Who brings all the presents then, if you’re so smart?
Beth: Mom and Dad, stupid.
Me: Nuh-uh.
Beth: It’s true.
Me: How do you know?
Beth: Lisa told me.
Me: Oh.
This was bad. If Lisa said it, it must be true. I may not have always believed my sister, but anything Lisa said was gospel.
Me: But there’s still the Easter Bunny, right?
Beth: Puh-lease.
She got up and started walking out of the room. Then she looked at me and stopped my next question before I even had a chance to ask it.
Beth: And not the Tooth Fairy, either!
Me: Oh.
Beth: Remember, you promised.
I remembered. I kept my promise. I was just five years old.
Until I was an adult, my parents didn’t know how entirely my own sister had decimated my innocence and faith and belief in all things good.
Can you believe she did that? She looks so nice.
I had no idea at the time what a gift my sister was giving me: a story that I could hold over her head for the rest of our lives!!! I bring it up as often as possible.
She likes to bring up that I once attempted to murder her by placing a paperclip in her milk and she was only saved because our mom turned around and saw me drop it in the glass. I don’t see what the big deal is about a paperclip anyway. Death By Paperclip?Whatever. I have no recollection of this and suspect she may have made it up, and also convinced our parents to go along with the story and the alleged danger of paperclips in milk.
I always knew they liked her best.
Also, this one time, Beth made me eat baking soda and another time she made me drink dandelion milk.
Happy Birthday, Sis! Just think, if I lived closer you could come drop a paperclip in my milk!
Anybody have any embarrassing stories about their siblings they’d like to share?
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 
This was great, sad that she destroyed your hopes and dreams at the age of 5!!!
I know, isn’t it awesome? I love telling that story.
I have five much older siblings. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and they’d probably kill me. Wish her a “Happy Birthday” from the rest of us too!
I can only post this because I live several hundred miles away from her, am half a foot taller than her and outweigh her by forty pounds 🙂
Great story!
You know, she does have that impish spark in her eyes 🙂
Absolutely she does!
Oh happy birthday to your sis!!!
I have quite a few embarrassing stories about my sis. But she has more embarrassing stories about me so I don’t dare say anything about it. 😛
The Santa Claus tale was dramatic!
I feel like nothing can trump the Santa Claus one. My whole family thinks the paperclip thing is worse. My mom is now insisting it was actually a bobby pin. I think my sister bribed her to say that.
My brother forced me to eat a tablespoon of Tabasco.
I’m surprised he didn’t make you snort it.
I made my younger sis eat a hersheys-kiss shaped turd that fell out of a younger kids diaper- telling her it was chocolate. WHY? Because she was litt-ler than me, you idiots. Because I could!
(she is now a multi-millionaire with beachfront/waterfront homes. I am living squat on Social Security Retirement benefits…what? benefits? Santa Claus takes many forms, my friend. Many forms)
Hi-larious. And that is why I love you.
My sister, 4 years younger, tried to chop my head with an axe. Luckily she was too small to get enough swing happening. Big axe it was too. She may have had more luck with a tomahawk.
Damn! You win. Glad it was too big for her to handle.
See, mom, an axe is most definitely attempted murder. Paper clip, or bobby pin, or whatever the hell you’re saying it is now- it’s debatable.
Ah, sisters! There is an attempted murder in every sister’s closet. The only one I can think of was on MY part. I threw a large cardboard box at her head, narrowly missing her eye. I got in serious trouble and she never lets me forget about it. I was aggressive. She, however, was sneaky. She tried to gaslight me…not kill me…she just wanted me to go quietly crazy. It may have worked.
Also five is really young to learn the truth about Santa. I’m a little sad about that.
I am positive that your sister did something to deserve having a box thrown at her head, and she should know that if you had really been trying, you wouldn’t have missed. I used to be sad about Santa when I was a kid but as soon as I realized I could tell the story over and over? Made it all worthwhile.
Well first of all, there is a Tooth Fairy as I mentioned in my post last week 🙂 And my sister ate her own tooth in her Lucky Charms and didn’t die. I imagine a paper clip would be no worse. And my younger sister stabbed my tooth-swallowing sister in the thigh with a nail file, and she survived that, too. Damn kids!! 🙂
See, that’s what I thought! And now my mom is saying it was really a bobby pin, and somehow that’s supposed to be worse and I just don’t get it. The ends are rubber-coated, for Pete’s sake! And yeah, there’s totally a tooth fairy. He’s alive and drunk and screwing up in a tatty tutu in Caldwell, New Jersey.