Another Sister Story

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

If you have any siblings, especially any within three years of your own age, I'm sure you understand that sometimes they'll just do annoying things for the sheer joy of it, especially when you're very young. Well, my sister was pulling some typical annoying-younger-sister shit while I'm drawing. I ask her several times to quit, be quiet, go do something else, all to no avail, because it is the duty of the younger sibling to annoy the older one within an inch of their life.

At some point, I just snapped and went to hit her in the leg clutching my pencil firmly in that hand, and wound up accidentally-and-not-on-purposely stabbing her in the thigh hard enough that the pencil-tip is bobbing around as she runs downstairs, screaming to our mother (she was wearing shorts). She's screaming along the way "I've got lead poisoning!! I've got lead poisoning!!"

My mother's shouting "Calm the fuck down (yes, my mother swore like that) -- let me look at it. Anyway, pencils are filled with graphite, so you don't have lead poisoning!"

Sister: "I have GRAPHITE POISONING! Ro's a murderer! Ro's a murderer! i feel myself dying!!"

"Will you shut the hell up and let me pull the pencil out!" My mother, being an RN, would have had complete control over the situation if my sister wasn't being such a drama queen.

In the meantime, I'm walking downstairs, absolutely mortified that I managed to stab my sister. I'm nine years old and have never even hit her (slap-fights in the back of the car and similar, sure, but that's not really hitting) or any other kid. When I get to the kitchen, I sheepishly manage "I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Molly's screaming "You'll get the electric chair for killing your own sister! You're a murderer! I... I feel myself dying!"

Mum: "We don't live in Texas, and executions are done with shots in Ohio. Anyway, you're not going to die, so Ro's not a murderer. Now will you sit still so I can pull this pencil out?"

"But I want him to DIE for what he's put me through!"

"Will you shut up! I heard you through the vent in his room and I'm surprised he hadn't done this sooner! I knocked my own sister's teeth in for less than some of the annoying shit you do to Ro."

At this point, my mother was finally able to pull the pencil out, then handed it right back to me, tip totally crusted in my sister's blood. "Here, I'm going to clean her up. If I were you, I'd keep it like this and pull it out the next time she starts bugging the hell out of you like that."