My Captive Audience, emphasis on “CAPTIVE”

My poor little sister, Anita—you really couldn’t ask for a cooler and sweeter little sister. I got her by bad marriage and good fortune. Bad marriage, being that my biological mother (I believe that is the PC term for those who were adopted, and/or those who were just screwed by reproduction) was a total crack-pot, and the excellent fortune that my Dad is a surprisingly fast-learner and married a truly great woman after the divorce (I will not question how the same individual could choose such extreme opposites—ultimately that would question my own existence and no good can come of that). The subsequent union resulted in three wonderful girls. Living proof that mistakes can be good things and maybe change is really the universe’s way of giving you a second chance. I don’t honestly know, but I can tell you with extreme confidence that the youngest of the brood is a super-cool kid. Of course, the rest pretty much rock, but this is about Anita. Anyway, she babysat for Dave and I last night so we could have a DATE!

It’s been a while since this has happened, so I had to get a new outfit (how totally LA)—new jeans and a new shirt. New flash: I have got knockers! I could work at Hooters, hell, I could manage Hooters. Can I tell you my breast seriously must have their own gravitational pull? They must be a planetary force because while just about every shirt on a rack (not mine) found their way into our cart. And very few, except the occasional mou-mou could cover the landmasses. I finally searched in maternity and found a very hip little number, which did it’s best to conceal the goods, while still remaining neutral in the hussy-arena.

I prepared for this date like my life depended on it. In every spare moment of time, (all of 18.7 minutes a day), I looked at possible accessory combinations, I researched restaurants, I calculated drive time, I practiced various conversations and, I am embarrassed to say—rehearsed poses! I may have been married for ten years, but I am still a dork and I still get nervous for a date. Especially since they are more rare know than in high school, and back then I almost collapsed from nerves before liftoff.

Ultimately, we went to a sushi bar in downtown Carlsbad. It was rich with tourists, who are my favorite folks to spy and make pretend things up that they are saying. Try it sometime. Instead of just looking at a really goofy dude, try to recreate his thoughts and his voice—come up with his unique catch phrase. It is addictive and terribly funny. Because you don’t have to be clever, the person is right there being the hilarious, all you have to do is fill in the bubble over their head. I really can’t recommend this past time enough. Mine would perhaps say, “I wish women could go topless since I can barely fit mine into a shirt.”

Okay, anyway—my husband will be so disappointed in me if I don’t totally ridicule him for the very first thing he said to the sushi chef after our 30 minute wait for the bar. “Hey, we just moved here. It looks like you are really putting out some MEAN sushi rolls.” Oh, no! I hang my head because I can’t remember a time when “mean”, meant anything but dork—seriously, was it ever cool to say that? Even in the 80’s when the term might have seen the light, it had to be by the tragically un-hip or perhaps the guys with those slivers of neckties that reminded me of nooses. Maybe it saw it’s heyday in Revenge of the Nerds, but I can’t be certain. All I know is that a 38-year-old with a middle-aged wife who, have been childless for all of 40 minutes, should not using those adjectives. I say stick to the basics—like “Yes, please.” “Thank you” and “Check” perhaps your rehearsed hand signal for “Is this seat taken?”

I think Dave was shooting for the stars with his MEAN sushi talk and thankfully, he stopped short of high fives, head butts, and face painting, with the sushi chefs. If you are wondering what he sushi-guy said, after a long pause and confused look, “Okay.”

So, we had a great time and while Dave said some questionable things to the general public, he said all the right things to me. We are flying high when we get home. And Anita is waiting for us. She has been watching tv and working on her computer. And then I start and when I am in that state of mind, I start and I can’t be stopped. I start telling her every excruciating detail of our date. I tell her every shred of gossip and every minute detail of information send in my way in the past week. I just can’t put on the breaks. And she listens and she laughs and she humors me, as she packs up her computer and tries to slyly head for the door. And bless her heart, she lets me keep on chewing off her bloody ear until she is in her car and driving down the street and my fingernails are fraying on the back bumper while I try to hold on for dear life and fit in one more story about…well, it could have been about the lint in my hairbrush for all that it mattered.

By a small miracle she escaped me before dawn. She is sweet, but she’s no sucker. Personally, I would have hung a meter on my chest and charged by the minute. (Note: this suggestion does not apply to current friends and family, only new customers.)

Well, the next morning, I was so delighted that we had such a great date and my children survived. But I did have an ounce of regret, not that I drank too much sake, not that I wore a suspiciously tight pair of jeans at my age, not that I ate more sushi than Dave, who is twice my size. Nothing made me feel bad, except for holding Anita hostage. She was the real casualty of our dorky, over-zealous, friendliness, not the sushi guy—he got a thirty-dollar tip and swept us out with the chopstick wrappers,

That is how you thank family, isn’t it? They give an inch…blah, blah, blah. I didn’t shoo her out the door to save her own life—nope. Captive and supportive, and clearly our personal savior, she did double-duty for me, (and Dave, who didn’t have to listen anymore). Not only did she steer our children from inevitable death, she saved the questionable self-esteem of her much-older sister, barely escaping from death by boredom. She is not to be messed with. (Which I think that might fall into the questionable-phrase category. Did Mr. T say that? Who am I to mock anyone?)

I guess the bad marriage and good fortune is uniquely a blessing in my life, but her good turns are still to come. For now, I will relish the summer with her and inevitably abuse her good nature and generosity again and again. It is like putting a butterfly under glass with a pin in the thorax—sick and wrong but difficult not to inspect and be grateful that someone captured such a fleeting creature of beauty. Such is our summer with Anita.