The New Sister

When I was a child I thought my elder sisters were the coolest people alive.

I have three sisters, two of them about twelve or thirteen years older than me. Thus, when I was nine years old, they would be about 21. And that was just a very cool age.

To add to the coolness, these sisters lived overseas. And as we all know, anywhere but here is a lot cooler… independently on where ‘here’ happens to be.

I must have been quite an annoyance. Every time my sisters called to speak to my mother I was standing next to her, leaping up and down like one of those annoying little furry dogs what have an annoying squeaky bark. Mind you, long distance phone calls in the 80’s were the only means of communication for people abroad. Aside from the fact that this kind of communication monopoly must have meant that long distance phone calls cost a smaller fortune, my sisters called to speak to my mother. Not to Elena, 9 years old.

But this was not relevant. I could not imagine anything more fun than sitting on the other end of the line, speaking to a very excited nine-year old who, in one single breath, was summarizing her entire nine year old life. Yeah, can’t get any better than that.

One fine day, one of my sisters decided to come for an extended visit. I don’t know if her intentions were to stay long, or it just became that way. But the fact of the matter is, she did end up staying for a few years.

I would boast in school that I had the coolest sister on the face of the earth, and that she looked like all the Hollywood starlets put together. I vaguely remember bringing friends over to see her. I even tried to marry her off to one of the teachers in school (My reasoning being: “hey, he is an adult, she is an adult. Great- they have stuff in common”!)

My other sister (yes, let us not forget that there were others!) who was only two years older than me, who had been the coolest person on the planet in my eldest sister’s absence did not take very warmly on this trespassing of territory. I remember quite a lot of fights between her and my eldest sister. They would often be about clothes, as I recall it. My 21 year old itty-bitty sister would namely fit into my 11 year old sisters skirts (crazy 80’s fashion) making these be attractive goods in the family residence.

What really sent me over the edge was one day when my 21 year old sister was in the living room, MTV at full blast. I can still remember what she was wearing: there was this white t-shirt with cartoons on it, tucked in to this itty-bitty jeans skirt (property of my other sister).

A short note on this jeans skirt.

It was, by far, the most attractive garment of the house. It got sent around more than chain mail! No wonder, imagine this marvel of 80’s fashion:

Remember stone washed jeans? Well, it was that same material, only it had a patch of neon green cloth sown in to the front of it. It was one of those bell skirts, product of the Lambada era (remember Lambada?). To top it off, la piece de resistance was this broad neon pink elastic on the waist. The 80’s at their prime!

Back to the story. So there we were, my sister with MTV full blast in the living room, me staring at her in wonder. All of a sudden, there it was. A Pearl Jam video on the TV. My sister leaped up from the sofa, excitement in her eyes. She turned towards me…

And then, she uttered the sentence that forever would change my life.

Staring at the lead singer she dreamingly said:

-“Oh! He is so sexy, I could have his babies!”

I almost fell of my chair. Why, I couldn’t really believe it. Say what? Have his babies?

A whole new world had opened up to me. A world where you could say stuff like this and they could sound so remarkably cool. You see, it was not so much the message in itself. It was more the way she said it. If, for instance, my mother would say something similar, it wouldn’t sound cool at all.

From then on, I carried this with me. For a long time, I have been waiting for the right time to deliver it. To pass the torch. Share this wealth.

So far, I haven’t had the opportunity to. I guess the right moment to deliver it never really has come. Or maybe it just doesn’t really sound that cool to me anymore.

But then again, what do I know?

I suppose I just have never really been very cool.