MY GLAMOROUS SISTER and UNGLAMOROUS ME part 2

My sister, her Imperial Majesty wanted her hands to look slim and delicate but she bit her fingernails. She did this because she was a princess-of-the-most-high, housed in the body of a person who lived in a hick town and that was hard on her, secretly knowing she should be living in a palace and all. She had issues, I guess, and took her frustrations out on her fingernails.

She decided that if she painted only the middle of her fingernails her hands would look longer and slim. It was kind of like an optical illusion, if you looked really close you could see fingernail bits at the edges but if you looked really quick, like you were on a galloping horse—a favorite saying of Mom’s--, then they looked slender and lovely. At least that was her theory and if there is one thing about The Imperial Majesty it was that she stuck to her decisions once they were made. If you doubt that click here to read how unreasonable and stubborn she was about not letting her sad little sister read in bed.

She could paint the fingernails on her left hand but not the right. She cajoled me into doing that one. If I had been smart—which I was not—I could have gotten something out of her. Unfortunately, as soon as a compliment came forth out of the mouth of The Princess I became hypnotized and did whatever she wanted.

“Don’t paint the edges. I want my fingernails to look skinny.”

“Why do you want skinny fingernails?” She should certainly be happy enough with a skinny waist, I thought.

“You ask too many questions. Just paint the middle and leave an unpainted edge on both sides.” She paused, looking Heavenward, as if waiting for inspiration. “You paint fingernails so well. No one could do it as well as you. Bless your heart.”

“Bless your heart” is an expression that is used to soften the worst compliment in the world. It also softens criticism such as: “Your hair looks like worms, bless your heart.” You didn’t know whether to shave your head or be grateful that she cared enough to invoke blessings from somewhere, maybe even from God.

I unscrewed to top of the fingernail polish and immediately got to work. I painted the fingernails on her right hand but not the edges. I did such a superior job that it became my full time responsibility and from then on I had to do both hands because no one could do it as well as I could. Bless my heart.

I painted the middles of her fingernails three times a week. Once on Friday night so she could have slender fingernails for her many dates and again on Sunday, God appreciated skinny fingernails, obviously. I painted them once sometime during the week when she forgot her promise to herself and bit her fingernails down to nubbins because she worried about millions of things. She worried on a regular basis and if she didn’t have something to worry about she made things up or borrowed the worries of someone else. It was a trial for her, being a princess all bound up in a normal person’s body, living in a hick town, and having such a duffus for a little sister to boot.

I did not have the desire to have long skinny fingernails. I did not care about my fingernails at all. When I was little Mom would trick me into sitting on her lap and then she would produce nail clippers out of her magical over-the-arm-of-the-chair homemade fabric-thingy that had a hundred little specialized pockets that held everything but a glass of water. She would hold me down and clip my fingernails, which grew to Guinness Book of World Record length with nary a break.

My sister, the Princess sighed at my good fortune and bit her nails in frustration. Then she would feel bad because she had broken her promise to herself once again and then she would remove the old fingernail polish and file her stubby little nails smooth. I would then paint the naked fingernails once again—but only in the middle. That always cheered her up, having such a willing servant and restored her good humor and she took her skinny fingernails and skinny waist and went forth to charm and delight the people of the world.

I did not. Have not. Do not. But I sure can paint fingernails well. Bless my heart.

MY GLAMOROUS SISTER and UNGLAMOROUS ME part 1

My sister, Her Imperial Majesty wanted to be glamorous. She stood endlessly in half finished dresses while Mother pinned and tucked and basted, trying to get them just exactly right for her daughter-of-royal-birth.

There would be pins sticking out like the quills of annoyed porcupines, threatening to tear the flesh off anyone who got too close. Her Imperial Majesty would walk, with extreme care, to the bathroom and then would stand in front of the full length mirror, corkscrewing, trying to see if it fit her waist tight enough. She would purse her lips in that movie star sort of way and look down her nose, practicing, I think, to snub those of less nobility. Practicing to snub me, for sure.

Her small waist was enviable, smaller than mine and I was nine years younger. Someone once told her that she was built like a Coke bottle and that made her deliriously happy. That wouldn’t be a compliment now, but then Coke bottles were nipped in at the middle. She spent a great deal of time in half finished dresses saying, “Can you just take it in a little bit more, right here?”

I thought having Mom make a dress was a big fat waste of time. She once made a dress for me out of patterned corduroy, which I might actually have liked if she hadn’t turned one piece of pattern the wrong way and the nap of the corduroy was pale. The rest of the dress had beautiful, rich autumn colors.

I wouldn’t wear it. Mother tried all sorts of persuasion.

“It looks perfectly fine,” she said.

“Mom, this whole side is a different color.”

“I don’t see it, I cut it out of the same piece of fabric. It looks EXACTLY the same to me.”

We had an endless discussion about the possibility of her being blind and me being stubborn and in the end I didn’t wear the dress.

Mom said she’s give it away to someone who appreciated her slaving over a hot sewing machine. I don’t know who that would be; perhaps the Indians who Mom was always telling me she was going to send me back to. I had seen the Indians and they wore beautiful velvet skirts and wonderful turquoise jewelry and had that blue black hair I envied so much. I knew they wouldn’t be bothered with a corduroy dress with the nap running the wrong way.

The dress was like one of those cars you see with one purple door while the rest of the car is white. They are usually driven by teen-age boys who are happy to be driving anything because their insane insurance rates are so high, or by old retired men who have no dignity left and just want to get out of the house. So, I think the dress never did find a home and it will turn up on ebay one day and it will receive no bids.

Her Imperial Majesty was the designated recipient of all of Mother’s sewing ambitions. Mom actually made her wedding dress. That was a month and a half of pure patience on Mother’s part and a month and a half of Her Imperial Majesty marathon pickiness and extreme desire to have every stitch perfect so she look like the princess she knew she was born to be.

Mom also made my bridesmaid dress, a sky blue creation and turned dark blue with the least trickle of perspiration. I had to wear dress shields so I wouldn’t look like the sweaty thirteen year old that I was.

When Puberty revved up all her interesting little hormones she gave me an extra dose of underarm glands and the only reason I survived teenager hood was because my cousin had the same runaway glands and I had someone to cry with. My cousin was all-things-beautiful and so I felt that someday the Universe would in some way compensate me for my great sweaty trial as it had her, DURING her great sweaty trial. I felt it was worth waiting for, and so I endured. I’m still waiting but when the great compensation comes I will be so happy and fulfilled.

To be continued.