Joyride

It is official: Sister Madly has been disqualified from the Human Race.

“Curly hair is a mutated gene, you know!”

There is nothing quite like admiration of a younger sibling, the love that is apparent in the gentle reminder that the reason Sister Madly looks the way she does may have resulted from an incident like Chernobyl. This comes at a time when Younger Sibling admits that she is unable prove the beloved theory which states that Sister Madly was not in fact born, but found in a Cabbage Patch.

Yes, Sister Madly, the family took pity on you because… well hey, no one deserves to live amongst cabbages…

It was Tallulah who originally came up with the theory, which may have actually been a compliment as Tallulah absolutely adored her Cabbage Patch Kids even as Sister Madly tried to give hers away. But while it was Tallulah who thought up the theory, it was Younger Sibling who embraced it- and on occasion, embraces it still, because who wouldn’t want to brag about their curly-haired half-human, half-cabbage relative?

However, if Sister Madly is the product of genetic mutation, how is it that she has failed to achieve the height commonly known as average?* Hollywood routinely depicts the pitfalls of radiation as resulting in temperamental bugs and reptilian creatures reaching towering heights, yet Sister Madly can only nip at your ankles. Obviously, the well-meaning Pitfalls of Radiation Consultant hired by the entertainment industry for authenticity purposes missed a crucial day in Pitfalls of Radiation Class.

* Sister Madly is of the opinion that this ‘average height’ debacle can be corrected through a scientific procedure known as ‘bribery,’ in which a large sum of money donated by people other than herself persuades the reporting expert to lower the height known as ‘average’ to one she had attained and surpassed long ago.

Forget climbing all over the grocery store shelves; awkwardness peaks the moment you have to call the landlord to change a light bulb because, even when standing on a chair, you can’t reach it. You can put the chair on top of the kitchen table but your results will vary, the most common of which being a beastly attack by the chair in much the same way that Snoopy was assaulted that unfortunate Thanksgiving Day.

Einstein is said to have written ‘More the Knowledge, Lesser the Ego’ so let us embrace humility through some completely unbiased statistics. Shorter individuals are:

• more likely to outlive taller peers by 2 years
• less likely to be bitten by bugs- in particular, the Scottish biting midge
• more likely to be flung over the shoulder of an ill-tempered Viking for knocking down their sorry-excuse for a flag with a runaway keg
• more likely to find interesting rocks

At this time, Sister Madly can only confirm the last two, as her taller peers have yet to die and as she has never once encountered a Scottish biting midge. She has been flung over the shoulder of an ill-tempered Viking time and again at the Renaissance Faire- initially for that whole runaway keg thing, and thereafter just for the hell of it- and she has found some rather interesting rocks.

Like this one:

This one is magic. It’s a crystal inside of another crystal, a dream within a dream- and while it has yet to transport her to some enchanted fairyland, she knows that it’s only a matter of time. But more importantly, she found this crystal because she was short- at least, that‘s what she‘s been telling herself all her life. She found it because she was short, thus nearer to the ground than her taller, yet younger sibling. The fact that Younger Sibling was nowhere near the gravel pit the day when the magical stone was found was, is and will always be, beside the point.

So why, exactly, has Sister Madly been disqualified from the Human Race?

Because she just took you on a most agonizing joyride through cabbages and genetics for the sole purpose of showing you a picture of her magical rock, and this pleases her.

THEME SONG: Joyride, Roxette