Ya Say It's Your Birthday!

Today is the day my sister Anita came crashing into this world, nekkid and screaming. She's the nice one in the Lane family. She's the one who never got into trouble. She is the one who always kept her clothing neat and tidy. She is the one who had good grades. She's the one who ate all of her vegetables. She is the one who was most obedient. She is the one who gave the rest of us Lane kids a bad name!



She might have been a do-gooder but look at how adorable she was.


It's not very nice to blurt a woman's age so I'll just say she is MUCH older than me.

Enter the Wayback machine to April 6, 1966 BL (Before Lois)

Anita wanted out of that womb in a bad way. She came three months before she was supposed to. I guess she wasn't always obedient. The dinky little shit was only 2 pounds and 2 ounces and was a whopping 16 inches long. It would be three months before doctors let her go home and even when she was released from the hospital, she was still small enough to fit into a lunchbox, according to our mother. I guess during Mom's childrearing days they didn't have these newfangled baby carriers, but putting the kid in a lunchbox, well, that's just weird.

Anita was born with only one lung. She had a heart condition but a strong will to live. Her little life was nearly cut short at least five times. Mom said she had a roller coaster ride of health problems until Anita was 10-years-old.

By then I had already entered the picture, destroying Mom's uterus with my 8 pound 5 ounce ass, just so I could be the baby. I trashed that place I tell ya. I pulled the little hangy tubes, kicked the shit out of the padded lining and Mom's kidneys, right about the time she was ready to spit me out, I flipped upside-down and stayed in there a little while longer. I mean, there was still life left to be sucked out of this woman.

Being the baby didn't mean that I ruled the roost, at least not all of the time. If I messed with Anita, I did get in trouble. Big trouble! It's obvious who Mom's favorite is, even though Mom claims that I am, saying I am so smart, kind caring and lovely all around. "Best of the bunch," I think were her exact words about me. Oh yeah, she also said I was the prettiest and that Dad agreed. But enough about me.

Back to the birthday girl. Days after her homecoming, Mary, the oldest of the girls (2 at the time) tried feeding her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in an attempt to, "Make baby sister a big girl like me." When Anita, the 3-month -old preemie, didn't eat the sandwich, Mary thought she was just an ungrateful brat and threw a little wooden wagon into Anita's bassinette, hitting her so hard she had the wind knocked out of her, a dent in her forehead and a big scratch on her face.

One might think the beating Mary got that day would have made her behave. Mary, however, was a little slow and even after the beating of a lifetime, she told our mother, "I don't like that baby she looks like a bird. I don't like ugly birds."

Mary will never live down the attempted murder of our dear sister Anita. Just the same as Anita will never live down the fact that no one ever wanted to sit next to her at dinner time because she mixed her corn with her mashed potatoes and her applesauce with her macaroni and cheese. I can still visualize this and I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Please don't tell me about food all going to the same place, people, for we all do have taste buds that food must pass before going to that same place. It was so gross watching her that I actually asked Santa Clause to bring me blinders so I never had to watch her eat, not a dolly, not a Barbie, blinders, I wanted horse blinders, badly.

There's plenty more stories Anita won't live down but because it's her special day, I'll digress. Tomorrow, however, is not her birthday. (Insert sinister giggle here.)

Happy birthday, Sista!