Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Bits

My sister was born when I was eleven-years-old, my dad was supposed to take me out of school when my mom was ready to drop but instead I got the message relayed to me afterwards – she was born at 2 PM on March 14th, being part dork I like to think she was born at 1:59 PM so her birth date and time would be 3.14159, the first six digits of pi.

I was with G when my Titi Anita told me the news; I danced around like a silly monkey before getting in her car and going out to the hospital.

My mom wanted to call her Elizabeth Margaret, after the two grandmothers. Being eleven, I thought Marel would have be a great, truly original name. Just because I was always creative didn’t mean I was actually talented. Thank God my parents didn’t listen to me otherwise my sister would have gotten ragged on everyday for having a name that sound like a comic book company and, if I remember correctly, was also close to the name of a paper tower company. And you think my mom wouldn’t name her Marel but you’re talking about the person who wanted to call me Alawishes Isadore.

I loved my sister big time from the start – the eleven year age difference meant we never fought or anything like that. For the 6 years before I went to college she didn’t have a room, though – my parents put up one of those false walls in their bedroom and put her crib behind it, eventually a little bed – but that’s all the space she had. As she got older she started to nomad it a bit more, sleep on the floor of my room, stuff like that, but it wasn’t until I went to college that she got her own room.

She always called me Jay-Jay which made me think I was all Dy-no-mite! No kids can say “Jason”, I realize – all my cousins called me some variant of “Jay” when they were little.

Except my cousin Andy. He called me “Gay-son” or, sometimes, just “Gay” when he realized every kid called me “Jay”. Yes, there’s nothing better than walking down the street with a three year old kid calling you “Gay”. Anyway, her nickname started as ‘Lil Bit but then moved to just Bits. We had one rule in our family – no-one was allowed to call her “Liz”. No-one listened, even my sister started to like “Liz” as her nickname.

The weirdest thing about getting a baby sister when you’re eleven is that you instantly become a babysitter which means you also need to learn how to change diapers. In this day and age, no eleven-year-old kid should have to learn how to change diapers – we don’t have the coordination or the stomach for it. I’d stand there, cleaning up the noxious strained-corn poop, constantly gagging. I was trying to potty train her before she could walk so I wouldn’t have to do that anymore.

Yuck. Someone needs to invent the self-cleaning diaper.

The worst was when you accidentally get some baby shit on your hand. You don’t even know what to do, you just stare at it for five minutes in shock, completely ignoring the naked baby lying on the table, and you go through your day and try to remember if you had chocolate at any point. As soon as you realize the warm substance on your hand is shit beyond any reasonable doubt you freak the fuck out, running to the sink and wash your hands for twenty minutes – naked baby on the table so long the remainder of the shit is now crusted to her ass.

I hated changing diapers.

But beyond the diaper thing it was all fun and games. As soon as your parents went out you’d start dressing her up in your clothes and throwing her all over the apartment. Feed her food she’s not supposed to eat like pizza and hamburgers. Teaching her at a young age that mom jokes are the funniest jokes in the world.

As she got older she got wicked talented. Viola, cello – she taught herself piano, she reads music and can even play back songs she’s heard without ever taking a lesson. She plays softball, basketball, soccer and is one of the fastest swimmers on every team she swam for. She was like the anti-Me. I played the baritone for two years and was a starting lineman for three years on my high school football team because I was really good at knocking people over, came with my clumsiness.

We became really close, I got very protective of her, I already told the story about The Letter (which, to tie it into yesterday’s story, happened after the family reunion). But I was the type of dude that when someone made the “Dude, when’s your sister going to be 18?” joke that every guy makes I’d go with the double slap to really lay on the disrespect (yes, I am one of those people who believes that there is nothing in this world funnier and more disrespectful than a man slapping another man; I love to slap men and come back with the backhand – it’s hysterical).

When my mom and I were fighting she’d occasionally use my sister as a bargaining chip and that would get me going. She’d especially do it when she caught me smoking, tell me I’m not allowed to talk to my sister until I stopped. That shit would get me pissed like nothing else.

She looked up to me; too, but you guys already know that.

Labels: mitc

Bits

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

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