TWISTED SISTER
Last year, on her birthday, I wrote a blog post about my sister Brooke. And now another birthday has come and gone for Brooke, and although I don't intend on making this a birthday tradition for her (because I usually disappoint,) I feel that there needs to be one more blog post about my crazy, scary, beautiful, manipulative, magnificent,
twisted sister Brooke.
in her birthday tribute... I announced that she was "the meanest sister."
and she was.
On that we can all agree.
Maybe we can assume she has mellowed over the years.
Well........ let's not go that far.
I don't think I have told you about any recent incidents.
Well, unfortunately there are recent incidents.
One incident so terrible, that to remember and recall the details of the incident requires a visit to my therapist.
I'll try to get through it. For you, I'll try.
It was a few years back at the opening weekend of Transformers II - a big deal for sure.
Especially here in entertainment starved Utah County.
Dean and my mom and I arrived at the Provo Towne Cinemas surprisingly early and secured our place at the front of the line for the movie.
My brother Wes, sister-in-law Tammy and sister Brooke called to say they were right behind us, at the snack bar getting their jumbo size popcorn and Cokes and asked us to be sure to save them a seat.
"No prob" I assured them. We were first in line for prime seating.
However, as soon as the usher unsnapped the red velvet rope and started taking tickets, I felt the urgency of the crowd pushing us from behind.
Dean stayed back to give the tickets to Brooke and Wes and Tammy, so it was up to me and my mom to save the six seats.
We walked into a middle aisle and I started counting off six seats and I placed my purse and cell-phone in the seats as I went along. Quickly, I naively realized that other people were filling in and sitting behind me in our seats...the very seats which I had just saved with my said purse and cell-phone.
I turned around to kindly clear up the matter and saw a man and a woman sitting down in our seats, getting comfortable, and paying no mind to my belongings already placed there.
This pair was rough, they were mean looking and not going anywhere.
And they looked like this...
Although, Dean said they looked more like this...but who's to say.
Now, to know me is to know that I am not good with confrontation.
Especially because I am a peacemaker, I'm meek and mild...
and mostly because I simply don't know how to curse.
Oh, I know all the words...I just don't know how to use them effectively together in a sentence.
So standing there, facing this situation, I mustered up my boldest, strongest, valley girl voice and with raised eyebrows said "like um, hello those are our seats..."
The girl looked at me like this...
and snapped back looking straight ahead saying,
"uh, I don't see you sitting in them..."
And then I was like...
Although I'm sure it looked more like this...(and my lip might have been quivering a bit)
Mean Girl cocked her head to the side and gave me her wide open palm.
And I stood there with my mouth gaped open, incensed and flabbergasted that someone could be so rude. And the "Mean Couple" sat there chewing their Milk Duds, checking their phone, with smirks on their faces and still paying me no mind.
The theater was filling up fast, so I got tough and gathered my purse and cellphone and said to Mean Girl "you're a brat..."
and then I said "come on mom, these guys are rude."
and we abandoned the seats.
Pretty tough huh.
I looked around and saw Wes, Tammy, Brooke, and Dean walking in looking for us and I told them I got nothin. We quickly walked up and down the aisles looking for other seats.
By this time, the theater was full and the previews were starting and there was not one empty seat in the whole place. I briefly told Brooke and Tammy what happened and pointed out the culprits who were sitting smugly in our perfect seats.
Wes and Dean walked out of the theater, on their way to look for another movie...
(it might've been Twilight)and we were supposed to follow...
but just before we walked out...
Brooke stopped in the dark...
and that's when it all went wrong-
Brooke paused me with her hand on my shoulder at the top of the exit and issued a challenge for me to go over and confront the Mean Girl and do something obnoxious to her before we left.
Brooke instructed me (with strange excitement in her voice and rubbing her hands together) "Oh Hil...I know!...you should go over and pretend you are looking for your cell-phone and then just stand in Mean Girl's way... just stand there"
I immediately hesitated and Brooke quickly jumped in..."come on Hil, (hands together begging) it will be so great, you can't just let that girl get away with taking our seats, come on it will be the greatest payback, just stand right in her way so she can't see the movie...
she won't know what to do..."
At this point I don't know what came over me except for a feeling only described as
'sibling hypnotic-manipulation' (actual medical term)
So I walked boldly over,
in the middle of the opening sequence of the movie,
in the middle of the theater,
just as Optimus Prime was gathering his army...
I walked right up to the Mean Couple.
I was hoping I looked like this...
I'm sure I looked more like this...
The mean girl saw me coming and glared at me with a look of,
"you better back down sister."
I looked back at Brooke who was standing with Tammy under the green glow of the Exit sign, watching with glee, giving me the thumbs up and that familiar "you can do it Hil!" look.
I gulped and made my way to the middle of the aisle and stood in front of Mean Girl and said innocently "I lost my cellphone" and then I just pretended to look for it, rummaging around her seat standing in her way and trying to be as obnoxious and bothersome as I could.
Mean Girl wasn't buying my act and after a minute or so when I bent down to check under her seat she took her right foot and placed it in my hip bone and
KICKED
ME
OVER
THE SEAT BELOW!!!
yep that really happened -
I'm sure I looked like a deer in the headlights as I crashed down on the movie-goers and their popcorn.
Before I knew what was what, I was gathering my wits and pulling myself up off the crowd, Mean Girl was standing up in my face and dropping all the swear word bombs that she had locked in her bad word vault.
She was really good at it too. She knew all the insulting and obscene ways to swear at me.
At this point the whole theater was turned and watching us, (thank goodness everyone had their cell-phones turned off...or this blog post would also come with a YouTube link)
For some reason, my adrenaline kicked in and I felt embolden enough to talk a little tough right back at her.
I think I said with big eyes....."you have a problem?!!"
And she said '*;bleep;*#*@ , you '*bleepity; bleepin, bleep%#$@*' and then just one big bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!! and even some more %^$#@ bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! and then some reference about me being in the female entertainment business and something about my bleeeeeeeeeeeep!
and she shoved me again and I stood up and firmly grabbed her arm, (with my fingernails) and narrowed my eyes.
Oh yeah, it was on!
I didn't back down.
We were face to face...I could smell the bad words on her breath.
She was pushing me backwards,
...and as it was happening I was hoping it might have looked like this...
But I was told later that it looked more like this...
And just as things were hitting a boiling point between the two of us, Mean Girl's boyfriend decided to get up in my grill too. Tough Guy was even better at swearing that his woman was. He was a real man.
I was out of my element, in a swear word battle, not wanting to compromise my own morals, fighting with these two professors without any end in sight.
Then out of the corner of my eye,
without even realizing what was happening,
I saw my bigger...taller...meaner brother Wes bounding towards us...
in front of the whole theater...and stopping just a few chairs away from us.
Wes loudly told Tough Guy to shut up and sit down. Tough Guy said "why don't you come and make me...and as Wes started to walk around to do just that...(my brother Wes is 6'6"and pretty solid looking)
Wes stood firm as Mean Girl also sat down and he waited and glared at everyone with his "I pity the fool" look. as I meekly slipped out of the aisle and walked away from our seats...again.
Whew! Wes came just in time too, I was about to let loose on that girl.
She would've been in sorry shape.
As I crossed the darkened theater in my exit walk of shame,
I felt angry tears welling up in my eyes.
The first person I saw,
the first person I looked for was my sister Brooke.
And there she was...with her hand over her mouth...wide, gleaming eyes and her lips pursed together trying not to bust up laughing.
As we all walked out into the hall, Brooke looked at me and said "Hil, are you OK?!!"
I looked at her with tears burning in my eyes
and said...
"don't even...
don't you even...it's all your fault!"
That was of course too much for Brooke. She busted up, doubled over laughing, coming up gasping for air and grabbing me around the shoulders because she was so weak from laughing.
I stood there firm, looking straight ahead.
I was not going to give in.
She was wanting me to laugh, making me, forcing me to laugh with her.
But I was strong.
I was going to punish her.
I was so mad at her.
I was done being her friend, done being her sister.
And then she said "Hil, I love you, that was sooooooo awesome!!!!"
and well folks, that was it.
that was all she needed to say to me. All was forgotten.
If I live to be a hundred years old, I will never understand the effect that my sister has on me. You will never find another girl, another person like my sister Brooke. That might sound like I'm being nice, but I don't think I intended it that way. She is one of a kind, that is for sure. Let's just leave it there.
As my consolation prize that fateful night "Mean Girl" and her "Tough Guy" boyfriend were escorted out of the theater a few moments after we left by an usher amid a cheering audience. I guess you can't yell rated R obscenities in a PG-13 movie.
and the management gave the six of us refunds and free tickets and an all-access pass to the concession stand.
So we all felt like Charlie Sheen "uh WINNING! duh..."
Brooke promised there in the lobby of the theater that night that someday I would be able to laugh about it all. I guess that day has come.
I'm sure Brooke and I will remain great friends until the day we die, and even then we will no doubt be causing some trouble and laughing it up elsewhere even after we are long gone.
I just hope I survive living with her here on this earth.
(side note; just before this picture was taken, Christmas Eve 1988,
Brooke reached around and... uh....um...ahem..."tuned in Tokyo"... and my only reaction was to laugh)
We will both cackle and laugh and reminisce and laugh some more silently with tears running out of the corners of our eyes. Then we will sigh and I will stare distantly out the window and Brooke will pause and get that look in her eye and say those undeniable words;
"...Hil, I dare you to...."
That's how I see it happening for us.
This picture here is just before our big dance recital around 1983.
Don't you think Brooke looks a little like Wonder Woman, and I strangely look a little like Olive Oil.
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Jen Meeks