The difference between my sister and me is that I go drama queen in situations where she appears to be barely ruffled.
Many eons ago when we were in college we were on some sort of road trip. I can’t remember where we were going but we were in her car, which was originally my car, which was a 1972 Plymouth Duster that had once been owned by our grandparents. I could probably get at least a half dozen good blog posts out of that car. I’ll have to see if there’s a good photo somewhere.
Anyway, on this particular trip we were low on gas and this was the kind of car that went from a quarter tank to stuttering on fumes in a heartbeat. Knowing this, we took an unknown exit which led to the backroads and not a strip of gas stations and chunk chunk. We were out of gas. I immediately went into freak-out mode convinced that our very lives were at risk and days later people would find our bodies in a ditch.
My sister calmly told me to get out of the car. She locked it and grabbed the gas can (out of gas, not an uncommon occurrence) and off we went, no civilization in sight. Within minutes a car filled with strangers pulled up and offered us a ride. As I protested, “How do we know they aren’t blood-thirsty murderers?” my sister calmly ordered me to get into the car.
The world’s nicest people took us to the gas station and back to our car.
We lived on into middle age. So far.
I bring this up because she’s on her way here right now and just phoned because she got mixed up and went over a bridge she shouldn’t have. When I first moved to Portland I was perpetually lost. It took months before I didn’t cry when I ended up driving over a bridge I shouldn’t have. I was panicking for her, thinking “Oh no, how will she find her way?”
She phoned us from the car, completely calm. “What do I do next?”
And she’s good at fixing things. Why didn’t I inherit those genes?
