STBUC

My little sister and I look a little alike.  I enjoy this fact given the torment of my older sisters when I was young and didn’t look like my older sisters.  When I was younger I had white blond hair and both my sisters had very dark brown hair.  When my sisters wanted to bug me they would tell me I’m adopted and they would keep at it until I would break and get mad.  Milkman’s daughter, adopted, whatever they picked that day.  No, we didn’t have a milkman, maybe I was the postman’s daughter.  By the time Beth came along my hair had gone to a light brown which happened to match hers!  I did fit in the family!  I had a sister I looked like!

Beth and I have always looked a lot alike or so we have been told all our lives.  I do see a resemblance, but I see a lot of differences as well.  We have been asked many times if we are twins.  Umm…yeah…if we are the amazing story of twins born 5 years apart.  I never understood the twins thing, we look alike, but definitely not like twins.  I may look younger than I am, but so does Beth!  Beth & I are used to people asking if we are related?  Then are you sisters?  Are you twins?  Who is older?  We think it is a little odd that people even ask if we are related, that much is slightly obvious.  The twins thing always makes us laugh a little because we don’t see it.  Shoot, I feel bad for Beth every time somebody asks that cause she weighs about 25lbs less than me, has nicer hair, and does look younger.

Apparently some things haven’t changed from childhood, at least not yet, because we are still being asked the twin question.

In Chicago we were at Second City for a comedy show and an older couple sat down in front of us.  As soon as they sat down they turned around to ask us if we were sisters.  Yes we are.  Are you twins?  We are 5 years apart.  Who is older?  That would be me!  Oh man do I hate that question the most, who is older?!  Take a 2 second look; it isn’t hard to figure that one out!  After the show we go back to the hotel because our friend had to get up early for work the next day.  She was in bed and trying to stay awake and in an effort to stop her incoherent talk Beth & I decided we would go find a bar and let her sleep.  We didn’t think it would be hard to find a bar in downtown Chicago.  We were wrong.  We finally came across Elephant & Castle so we went in for a drink and downloaded apps to find bars on our phones.  We found a dive bar within half a mile & decided to go there.  We left and as we were approaching an intersection there was a guy with a pack on his back and he yells at us, “damn lesbians.”  Hmm….we just went from twins to lesbians in a matter of hours.  We looked at eachother with amused smiles and got stopped at the crosswalk.  The guy walks up to us and yells at us, “you lesbian whores” and as he was yelling the walk light turned and we walked across the street laughing.  Are you serious?!  I looked at Beth and told her that she is hot, but if I was to ever become a lesbian she would not be my first choice as that would be really wrong.

Not long after our Chicago trip we went to K&K for St. Paddy’s Day.  A nice low-key bar where the regulars are nice and the owner cracks me up.  We were meeting our friend there and found her at a table with some of the regulars (I believe she goes there more than she cares to admit).  One of the regulars that ended up at our table was named David aka The Legend.  Why The Legend?  Well he had been there and had a little to drink in the morning and flipped a table.  The owner was so impressed he was back that he called him The Legend.  I told him I was sorry I missed out on the morning festivities; he said he couldn’t remember them anyway.  Must have been a good morning and it really is impressive he was back to drink that night.

Now the K&K had an interesting mix on this St. Paddy’s Day.  There were many who were barely 21 and some of them were in “I’m a Coug” green shirts with fraternity symbols.  The girls were wearing shorts or skirts that barely went to the bottom of their butts.  One girl was wearing a trucker hat that said “I came to drink and fuck bitches.”  This girl was also sitting on stools, legs spread and rubbing on any guy that got between them.  Obviously this provided plenty of entertainment for Beth & I and we couldn’t help but comment on some of things going on around us.  Apparently we were interesting to watch as well.  David asked us if we were related.  Sisters?  Twins?  Who is older?  Sisters, 5 years, I’m older was established.  A while later he says, “you girls are really sweet.”  Obviously this threw Beth & I off as we had been making fun of people around us since he got there.  Beth looked at him and asked “are you making fun of us?”  Reasonable question I thought at the same time I’m wondering if he could possibly be drunk enough to think that or stupid enough to be that much of a smartass to my little sister when he didn’t know her.  He assured us that yes, we were sweet, we are just really sweet girls.  I looked at him and asked “as we are calling people whores?”  Another reasonable question.  WTH was this guy thinking?  I mean yes, Beth & I are sweet, but we have our moments of not sweet and that was one of them.  Ha!  David’s response to me “you are genuine.”  I cracked up.  It was true, we were serious when calling out the actions around us I suppose.  He just liked that we are real and honest and easy to be around.  Umm…thanks buddy.  Beth & I liked this boy.  He then told us that the way we watched people is like we were taken out of the country and put in a big city.  We must have given him strange looks before laughing because he got defensive, he didn’t mean it in a bad way, he is from the country in Ireland as well, it wasn’t a bad thing, he just likes how we watch people.  We all continue to enjoy our conversations and watching people and then our new buddy was saying how he likes that we are obviously very close and enjoy hanging out with eachother and he just wants to adopt us!  Beth & I are really amused by this guy, he was just not getting over us being sisters who were out together and having fun.  Maybe he was missing his family?  I think the next line of questioning was who the boss between us is.  He wasn’t buying my answer of it depends on the situation.  That went on for a while, pure amusement.

Who would have thought the fact that I have a little sister that looks like me could provide such random entertainment?!  I guess it is good we are so easily amused.

I can definitely make decisions.  Sometimes I’m a little slow.  Sometimes I’d rather somebody make the decision.  Alright, sometimes I can’t make decisions.  It is just so hard to make decisions sometimes.  I’m glad I share this trait with my sisters though.  (If you are reading this and thinking you can make decisions, yeah, as often as I can.)

I almost felt bad for my bro-in-law last week when we started our trip to CA to visit with the family down there.  We were on an evening flight and none of us ate before heading to the airport.  We parked the car and on the shuttle over we were already talking about wanting food.  We made it through security and it was time to find food.

We tried naming a place or two we knew was there.  Then we found a map to look out.  There was Anthony’s, Wolfgang, Chili’s Too, food court, other stuff.  We ruled out some choices because they were in the wrong section.  Yeah us!  Then we walked toward the food court thinking we would figure it out on the way.

We see Anthony’s and John thinks that is good.  We look at a menu and sure I could find something on there.  Should we put our name in?  I ask if I’ll smell like fish the entire plane ride if I eat here and John says no.  Okay, Anthony’s is fine.  Then it is Shelly are you sure, we can go elsewhere.  My sisters took my question as I don’t want to eat there.  Fair enough, I wasn’t that thrilled about the idea.  We go back and forth on walking to another spot or eating at Anthony’s while on the waiting list.  As we are debating our name is called and under pressure I make the decision to try Chili’s.  We tell the lady we changed our mind and off we go.

We walk a fair distance and on the way we checked out a menu at Alaskan or something like that, a bar.  Nothing to intriguing there.  Three things I would consider, same amount of things I’d consider at Anthony’s.  We keep walking and were joking that Chili’s will probably be closed.  Hmm…who would have thought?!  Chili’s Too was actually closed!  At dinnertime.  In the airport.  Not okay.  Let me tell ya I could feel the love going my way upon that discovery.

Okay, lets go towards where we started (the only option).  We stop at the Alaskan cause it was the first open place so that is where we were going to eat.  We pull some tables together and sit down to drink and eat.  I get turned off by the menu because one of my 3 things I would consider is crossed off so now I’m not really wanting any of it.  Beth, Deb, and I keep asking what eachother is getting to eat, does anything look good to you, you want to eat elsewhere?  We somehow decide this is Beth’s decision.  Yeah for it not being me!  We put off the waitress telling her we haven’t decided yet.  John is a little frustrated and he asks the right question for an answer.

John: Beth, where would you eat if you were here alone.

Beth: Well it sure as shit wouldn’t be here!

This cracks us all up.  I say I agree.  John may have rolled his eyes.  I say we should get up and get out before the waitress comes back.  We grab our bags and go.  Back to Anthony’s!  The hostess looks at us and we ask to be back on the list.  I think she just made us wait to punish us for leaving.  I say if I was alone I would have gone to Qdoba and back to the gate as I’m looking around at all the different places we could eat right away.  Maybe that didn’t help some of us who were frustrated?

We get our seat and the decisions continue to come.  I was able to make a decision on what to eat fairly quickly, the one thing I would eat on the menu.  Done!  I even decide on a drink.  Of course when I order it the waitress tells me it is the one drink they are out of the stuff to make.  Of course it is!  She said there is another drink I like, but I didn’t want it, I wanted the drink I ordered so i just had coke.  Look at me, I decided on coke right away.  :)  Gee, as I’m writing this I realize I actually can make lots of decisions.  Ha!

It was a great start to a fun trip with family.  Maybe it was good we were separated on the plane though.