With hair like mine, I
didn’t wash it myself until I was nearing adulthood. Hence, the scene: a head
full of shampooed curls and my mother leaning over me in the bathtub breaking
her back to complete a task most children my age had accomplished years before.
With mom and I occupied by the nest atop my head, the task of keeping an eye on
my baby brother fell to my younger sister. If you knew my sister you’d know
that this plan was set up to fail from the beginning. My sister, even now as an
adult, cannot be relied upon for the most basic tasks because of her propensity
for distraction. And at six years old with Rugrats on TV, she was doomed. My
mom had poured exactly 1 plastic cup of water onto my head when catastrophe
struck (catastrophe in this instance is relative to a mother on her son’s first
birthday).
Mom jumped up and ran to
assess the situation while I sat watching my feet shrivel in the chilly bath
water. I heard plenty of banging and yelling followed soon by my sister appearing
in the bathroom informing me that she had allowed our brother to pull his
birthday cake off of the table. He had proceeded to play in it and while
already in his birthday outfit leaving both the cake and his clothes ruined.
All of this occurred while she stood inches from the TV laughing at Tommy
Pickles get into a fun kind of TV trouble unaware that she would soon be facing
the kind of trouble they do not show on Nickelodeon. Furthermore she informed
me that mom was after her, I believe she even uttered the phrase “help me.”
Children who live in
solidarity with their siblings have always been heroes to me because in that
moment I knew which side I wanted to be on and it was not the losing side of my
poor sister. So, because I am my mother’s daughter I called upon a look of
disgust and shook my head at her while rolling my eyes to ensure she understood
what a disappointment she was not only to mom but to all of us.
Seeing she would receive
no sympathy from her big sister, she retreated to her room. In the meantime I
was left to rinse my own hair for the first time in my life, my brother still
managed to turn 1 despite the lack of cake and my mother’s wrath grew less
intense after she threw a chair across the kitchen that day. The mystery of
whether the chair was thrown at someone
is still heavily debated each holiday when we are together. But overall, that
was a day of accomplishments: hair-washing, birthday party, and self-reflection.
However, the guilty party accomplished nothing and she will still ignore your
every word if there is television anywhere near her.
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