To My Niece, the Ninja

Oh, Chels. I can’t believe you're turning 18! Soon we will both be considered adults, (how the hell did that happen, right?) and it makes me want to reminisce about our childhood days. So here it goes...

God, did we used to fight. It seems like most of my memories of our younger days are of us brawling in one way or another, and many times those brawls brutally ended with at least one of us in tears and running to my mom to tell on the other. I just have to tell you this:

I didn’t hate you; I just loved to torment you.

I mean, think about it. We had some pretty good times, though it would seem as though we hated each other’s guts.

I would always get so mad when you followed me around like we were in Ice Age and I was Manny the Mammoth and you were Sid the Sloth and just couldn’t take a hint.

It pissed me off when you tried to copy me all the time; you wanted to be like me so bad that you would even sneak stealthily into my closet when you thought I wouldn’t notice and ninja a bunch of my clothes! Then you would try to convince me they weren’t mine, like I wouldn’t know my clothes.

Or like when we played Barbies and I only had one Ken doll that we constantly fought over, so I chopped off the hair of my ugliest Barbie, dressed her in some of Ken’s clothes, and created what my Daddy might call Dyke Barbie. Then I made you play with him/her because I still wasn’t willing to give up the real Ken.

Or the other times when I would tell you that your Barbie’s house got robbed and take all the cool things you were playing with and put them in my own Barbie’s house.

That’s just good strategizing, it’s not my fault you fell for all of my bullshit.

But for some reason you still liked me; you still followed me around, still wanted to play Barbies with me, and still insisted on trying to be just like me. Like that time when I got a super awesome outfit that made me look like Jasmine from Aladdin and then you showed up wearing the same goddamn outfit.

And you still thought I was funny. So funny, in fact, that one day when we were sitting in my Daddy’s truck in a parking lot waiting for him to come out of a store I said something that made you laugh so hard that you wet your pants in utter amusement. Of course I thought it was comical and wanted to make fun of you for it, but my Daddy loved his truck and I knew he’d probably be a little upset when he noticed the piss all over his seat, so I kept my mockery to myself.

Until now.

haha I love you Chels ;)