Sisters

SISTERS

Growing up in a family of girls (seven!) had many advantages, but the best one of all has been the tremendous friendship we have as adult sisters. When we get together from all over the country, it's like we were never apart. The conversation flows at a high rate of speed, the tears flow at times, but mostly the laughter, belly laughter, I-can't-catch-my-breath laughter, erupts at the slightest provocation.

Over the years we have done many sister overnights and weekends, and I have usually written diaries of those events. There's a certain amount of sadness that accompanies those memories now, because Janet, who caused so many of those laughs, is now gone. I have often contemplated why Janet did cause so many of our laughs. She was such a "together", accomplished person, the one we all looked up to and wanted to be like. Did her misadventures make us laugh so hard because we were so relieved that she was actually "normal" like the rest of us? I don't know. But who cares? Below are some of those memories.

On one of our road trips I decided to read aloud the Erma Bombeck column of why it takes women longer than men to use the rest room. One of the reasons was that women "settle in" after they find a place to put their belongings, slipcover the toilet seat, etc. Of course the reading of that column brought gales of laughter, but not nearly as many as we had at our next restroom stop. It was quite a dirty restroom, and as we all "went" in our separate stalls, we were commenting about the filth to each other. As we thoroughly washed our hands afterward, Janet came out of her stall completely unaware of the trail of toilet paper that was streaming from her waist in the back. I said, "Uh, Janet, your slipcover got stuck in your pants." Surely the other women in that restroom must have questioned our sanity as we laughed until we could hardly breathe.

At another stop we decided to eat at the Burger King that was a part of that rest stop. It was VERY crowded, and we sisters stood there in a group, continuing our animated conversation, completely unaware that we were standing in the "pick up" line instead of the "order" line. After a long wait, we discovered our mistake and went to the back of the "order" line. After another long wait, we finally ordered and switched back over to the "pick up' line. No problem, we still had lots to talk about. Eventually we discovered that they were calling numbers. We asked somebody about that, and were told that our receipts had numbers on them. I looked at the receipt in my hand, and sure enough, there was a number. Janet and Mary Ellen had ordered together, and Janet said, "We didn't even get a receipt." Then she looked at my hands and said, "Oh, here it is. Jeanie has it." I said, "No it's not. This is MY receipt." Janet looked completely bewildered as to why she would not have gotten a receipt if the rest of us did. Somebody asked her, "Did you get any change back? What did you do with that?" She looked in her wallet, of all places, and there was her receipt. I think you had to be there to appreciate the humor in that situation, but appreciate it we did!

And yet another "bust" on Janet. In our sightseeing of Gloucester and Newport, where our sister Betty lived at that time, Janet needed more cash. She was "modern" enough to have a MAC card. We went to Betty's bank, which was closed, but there was a MAC machine inside the lobby. Betty told her that there was a slot in the front door into which one could insert a MAC card, and it would unlock the door. Janet got out of the car while the rest of us sat and watched. To our great amusement we watched her insert her MAC card, not into the small slot that Betty was talking about, but rather into the slit between the two big double front doors. She turned around to us questioningly, because it obviously did not work. Oh, did we howl. If only I had been quick with the camera - a brilliant, dignified woman like Janet, standing there, trying to insert her MAC card between those two doors! We decided we were lucky that she did not set off some kind of burglar alarm!!

On another road trip I, the current driver, had trouble closing my seatbelt properly. Doris helped me out, shoving it "good and proper", and it stayed shut. Stay shut it did indeed! Several hours later we decided to switch drivers. We pulled over along this very busy interstate highway north of NYC to do so. My seat belt would not open. Several of my sisters tried to help, squatting beside my opened door, right along that busy highway. We pushed and pulled and pressed and shoved, all to no avail. SOOO, it seemed I was stuck forever - until we came up with this great idea. I reclined my seat as far back as it could possibly go, then right there in full view of all the people passing by, I wiggled out of that seatbelt up over the back of the seat and out the back passenger door - definitely not the most dignified position I've ever been in. Of course, the entire drama was accompanied by gut-wrenching laughter.

That night in Rose's house in Voluntown, CT I was sleeping next to Janet on a sofabed. We sisters had stayed up talking into the wee hours of the night and were finally trying to settle down and get some necessary sleep. I was just dozing off when Janet started that shaking that comes with laughter that one tries to keep inside. Before long, she could no longer keep the laughter inside. She said, "I'm sorry, I was almost sleeping when I got a sudden flashback of you trying to get out of that seatbelt." Did you ever try to go to sleep after the other person in your bed starts laughing? You both lie still, and then one of you starts shaking, or just outright laughing, and then you're both laughing again. And then you stop and try to lie still.....

Oh, God, we would just love to laugh with Janet again. And someday we will.