Tall Tales

This past weekend the unthinkable happened. 

My family accused me of making up stories about our family's past history.  I believe my mom's exact words were "You seem to remember a lot of things that no one else remembers."

How Dare You!

To that I say - It's not my fault I remember things that you conveniently forgot. 

Someone has to be keeper of the lore.

I believe the hornet's nest got stirred up when we were discussing a previous blog post I did dedicated to my brother where I mentioned a few memories I have of him and I growing up.  My sister Camille mentioned that as she'd read through that post she'd been surprised that she didn't realize how many things Ben and I did together.

**Insert my mom's MEMORABLE line here about my telling of falsehoods**

I suggested that perhaps Camille and our youngest sister Emily didn't remember these things because they are much younger than me and would have been busy riding their tricylces around their Barbie house while Ben and I were off on such adventures.

I would also suggest that my mom doesn't remember because she was raising 4 young children and all she had on her mind was meal prep and laundry.  Personally, now that I'm in her shoes and raising my own young family of 4 children, I'm hoping that when I'm her age my memories of this time will have faded too :)

It saddens me to admit that I don't have a ton of memories of my younger sisters during my childhood.  They were still wearing pig tails and I was off driving and working and going away to college.  So my relationship with them really cemented itself after we were all married and started having babies.

But, in the tradition I've established of telling "tall tales" I present to you one story I DO vividly remember about my sisters. 

Let me set the stage for you.  I was married, but still pre-children, and on some Saturday mornings my sisters would come over and have breakfast with Steve and I.  Camille is older by like 20 months or something (I'm not doing the math right now).  Emily had just gotten her driver's license.

They showed up at our apartment a little later than Steve and I were expecting and they looked something like this:

There was gravel in their hair and their clothes looked kind of dusty.  Things had clearly not gone well.  I wondered if perhaps there had been an attempted car jacking on their way over.

Turns out I was right.  There was an attempted car jacking.

It was Emily attempting to car jack Camille.

Ha ha ha.

When Emily got her license she foolishly felt like her and Camille should have equal driving privileges.  But, in a rare show of backbone, Camille asserted that as the older sister it was her right to drive at all times when they were together.

This little "discussion" ended up with them wrestling on the asphalt just outside the open driver's door of their sweet ride.

And just what, you ask, kind of sweet ride would cause such competitiveness and a need to be behind the wheel?  An Isuzu Trooper that looked like this:

This little "discussion" / WWF tourny ended with a neighbor pulling his car alongside them and rolling down his window to make sure they were okay.

UNCOMFORTABLE!!

Let me tell you that when you're 16 and almost 18 you really shouldn't be wrestling on the road over who gets to drive.  Really you just need to deliver a quick dead leg and jump into the pilot's chair while your opponent is incapacitated.

They were sufficiently embarrassed and got in the car.

Camille drove.

Bet they wish I'd FORGOTTEN that little story.

But my mind is like a steel trap. 

(Evil Laughter)