Becoming A Sister at 38

My sister is one of my staunchest supporters, my sounding board, my faithful ally. When we talk (or rather, when she talks and I listen) it's never less than a half hour and usually closer to a full one. We've lived most of our adult life never seeing each other for months (going on years now), yet our relationship has always flourished and stayed strong. It's really amazing to think that I never even knew I had a sister growing up. It's not that we grew up separate, we just grew up in a fantasy world where I pretended my sister didn't exist. In my defense, her constant attempt to get my attention was annoying as hell, and I made sure to narc on her every chance I got (which became more frequent and rewarding as we got older but only one of us got wiser).

My parents must've realized that this late-blooming sisterhood was so productive that the best idea would be to get us ANOTHER sibling. So just when I was beginning to feel secure in my place in the family heirarchy, my parents got a dog. And not just any dog, a teeny, tiny, fluffy, puffy, "is it a dog or is it a rabbit with a perm?" puppy. 

First, realize my parents DON'T like animals. Though we grew up with pets our whole life, it was only at their complete reluctance. And my dad was TERRIBLE at The Facts of Life: The Pets spinoff. Living on a busy streeet and having mostly male outdoor cats, we had a pretty high turnover. You'd think I'd learn not to have boy cats or outdoor cats or ANY cats. No, his humane idea of letting me know my cats were no longer "with" us was to tell me they'd run off with a girl cat and had last been spotted down the street together. Encouraged by the thought that I was somehow solely responsible for eHarmony, kitty style, and confident I was helping the pet population (sorry for misunderstanding, Bob Barker), this only encouraged me to replace each Skid Row runaway with a new one. My mom, the sweetest soul I know, found animals disgusting. She usually referred to one as "it," and to this day as I cuddle my own kitties, I can hear her stern words echo in my mind, "Trisha, stop kissing on that cat!"

So these UNICEF humanitarians got a puppy. A little tiny pomapoo that is like a windup gerbil on steroids. Cute as a button, but I'm pretty sure displacing my sister and I in any inheritance we might have pretended was coming our way. I'm certain after a long lifetime that no doubt will involve my parents moving in with ME during their sunset years, I will find that anything they've left behind as they go to be with their Maker will surely be in the dog's name and I the new dog's custodian. The dog is already a seasoned traveler (they bought him while here in town with us and flew him back home) and gets to venture to my parents' northern AZ cabin on the weekends. Within the first week my mom was cooking him his dinner every night (make no mistake, that's for the DOG, not my dad) and I'm sure he's already got a closet full of clothes to go with the hundreds of toys she's bought. I personally remember sharing a room with my sister for years, but I would wager the dog has his own fully furnished puppy palace. Having drawn the line a decade ago about deliberately having more children for the sole purpose of my mom's amusement, she's finally found a way to get what she wanted: My new sister, Skippy:

Skippy and his new butler, my dad.