My sister, Riki, is pregnant. Really pregnant. So pregnant that her baby is coming out whether or not he wants to on Monday. But, as any woman who has ever been nine months pregnant knows, five days is a very long time to wait for a baby. So I'm going to do by best to help assist her by irking her into labor. Induction by annoyance--this is definitely going to work.
It is time to confess about a little episode from the past when I was ten, and Riki was nine. Riki and I were fighting over an object. I say "object" because I have no idea what the thing was--a toy, a gift, a small woodland creature--it could have been anything. My recollection of "Object X" is gone, but at that time we both needed Object X so desperately that we would have ceased to exist without it. So, I did what any loving older sister would do. I grabbed Object X out of Riki's hands, ran like a maniac down the hall, and locked myself in our bedroom with it.
Riki responded the way any adoring younger sister would. She tried to break the door down with her brute strength. Her brute strength being limited by her nine year old frame, she rethought her strategy. The door began to endure an assault by credit cards and bobby pins, while Riki vocally reminded me that I was the meanest sister ever.
I was in a pickle. I could hide Object X, but I knew that eventually I would have to leave the room. At that point, Riki would enter the room, search it top to bottom, and find the coveted treasure. The room was too small, and Riki too familiar with it, being that it was half hers, for any hiding place to go unnoticed. I had to think outside the box. Or in this case outside the room.
I did what any normal ten year old would do. I opened the bedroom window, popped the screen out, climbed out of the window, hid Object X outside, climbed back in the window, propped the screen back in the window, closed the window, and opened the bedroom door.
"Try to find it now," I said, smugly to my sister.
She turned that room upside down looking for Object X. As her frustration increased, so did my self-satisfied happiness. I never confessed, and eventually she gave up looking for the wonderful, Object X.
Sorry, Riki. I bet you're so angry you want to burst. Like maybe, even, your water wants to burst in annoyance. And if it does, trust me, you are going to be thanking me for deceiving you as a child.
