Monday, August 4, 2008
Little Sister Syndrome
LSS gives me a deep urge to annoy and to please and to seek approval from a higher-ranking sibling who is older than me but not by much. And it makes me blissfully happy to get screwed over and think I'm getting a great deal. The following dialogue is an example of a typical childhood conversation between me and my big sister.
Me: Lisey, will you jump on the trampoline with me?
Lisey: No.
Me: Please?
Lisey: No.
Me: For five minutes?
Lisey: No.
Me: Why not?
Lisey: I don't want to.
Me: I'll let you have one of my toys!
Lisey: One?
Me: Yes, any one you want!
Lisey: No.
Me: Ok, I'll let you have all of them. Just five minutes on the trampoline with me.
Lisey: I'll think about it.
Me: (returning from bedroom, arms loaded with toys) Are you done thinking? Here are all of my toys. You can have all of them. Just jump with me for five minutes.
Lisey: (pause) For three minutes. And I get all of your toys.
Me: HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!! (Does annoying victory dance all up in her face)
I have realized that the lack of having a big sister around has forced me to find a surrogate. CC is a poor substitute for a big sister, but my LSS is brutal and it drives me to annoy and to please and to seek approval however I can.
Our conversation yesterday:
CC: Jose called. He is coming over to get the sweater he left here at the party. If I go answer the door, he's going to want to talk forever and I just want to lay here and watch sports all day. Will you go and give it to him when he comes?
Me: No. That's a remnant of your party. You deal with it.
CC: (gets cocky "you'll regret it" older sibling-ish expression on face) Okay.
Me: LOL!
(20 mins. later, coming up the stairs)
CC: From now on, I will always remember that you never did me that favor.
Me: Whatever! (laughing up in his face all annoyingly)
(3 hours later, coming home from Costco)
CC: I forgot the garage door opener. Will you go open the garage door? Can you do that one favor for me or is it too hard?
Me: I'll do it if it makes up for the favor I didn't do earlier.
CC: Nope. It only counts for a little.
Me: 80 percent.
CC: Nope. Five percent.
Me: Then Im not doing it. 50 percent?
CC: Ten percent.
Me: Okay!
(2 minutes later, unloading stuff from car)
CC: (Bag rips, cans of Coke Zero roll around on the driveway) Damnit.
Me: If I pick them up, does it count towards my favors score?
CC: 1 percent each can.
Me: Yes!!!
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4 comments:
Funny... but you are actually getting screwed more than you realize and here's why:
You got 10% of that favor points back, now there's 90% left, for each (gross) Coke Zero can you pick up you get 1% of the "left over" favor points... so 1st can you only get 0.9 original percent so you are up to 10.9% (total) with 89.1% left, 2nd can you get 0.891% of the original getting you up to 11.79 favor points... Zeno's paradox got you... and you are never ever going to get back up to 100%. Sorry.. but you deserve it since you should've just given Jose his sweater back...
UGH
Little Sister Syndrome, aka "annoyingness." Sigh. I just always remember you having this !!!ENERGY!!! that as an older sister and normal person, I never had. I was always telling you "no," and your sad little Little Sister Face with its ridiculously big Little Sister Eyes, the Little Sister voice, and all those Little Sister Hair Ringlets . . . well, it would lead to my own Big Sister Syndrome. Aka, "guilt."
And so I would ultimately give in to your little requests, but would still be upset at having this little thing guilting me into doing them in the first place. If I just held out a little, I could make you want your whatever-it-was-you-wanted-me-to-do-with-you-that-day even more, and then at least get something worthwhile out of it. Thus your "screwy" deals.
Then again though, you were never very good at deals, anyway. Slap bracelet for Stuffed Puppy?!!
Kind of sucks that you married another Big Sister though. :)
OK, but when you finally said YES I WILL PLAY WITH YOU, do you realize the stress I was under while we were playing together? I was: A. Determined to make you have so much fun with me that our 3 minutes of play time would turn into hours and hours of UNINTERRUPTED AND INCONCIEVABLE FUN B. Concerned that you weren't having enough fun and C. Scared out of my mind that I was going to piss you off somehow. A, my goal in all of this, never happened, but I swear that I thought it would. Every single time. But don't worry, in spite of the frequent soul-crushing disappointment you were still the best big sister in the world. :)
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