Fish Tales

...a collection of memories in honor of my cousin Katie, on her 28th birthday.

one
Asking you why you talked with a lisp and being legitimately jealous when you answered, "Becauthe Jethuth made me thith way."  What?!  Why didn't Jethuth make me tho cool?!

two
Staying up giggling into a pillow so your mom wouldn't hear while you and your boyfriend sent beeper texts to each other, arguing over the lines of a Pearl Jam song.  Just so you know, he was right.

three
Performing a lip sync/dance routine to Amy Grant's Galileo while spending a week at the farm...and deciding that our signature look would be one of Pappaw's old bandannas.

four
Performing a lip sync/dance routine to Amy Grant's Galileo while riding in the back of the Tahoe on our way to Lake Grapevine for an extremely awkward camping trip in which 1) you refused to go for a walk with your boyfriend, 2) my ex-boyfriend refused to talk to anyone because an Aggie basketball game was playing on the portable radio that he bought specifically for the occasion, 3) we spent the majority of our time playing "hit the stick," and 4) a carbohydrate thief stole all of our bread and muffins while we slept not so soundly in a camping spot that I'm pretty sure was a median.

five
Biting you on the stomach after you won a game of Memory at Grandma Trump's old beach house.  Sorry about that.

six
Fighting our way through mountains of Brooke's "handy-downs" at all family get-togethers.  Hello, Girbaud!

seven
Wearing matching floral dresses that your mom bought for us.  Yes, yes she did cut the rose off of the butt and sew it to a rubberband to create a lovely hair accessory for our side pony-tails.

eight
All of your lovely hair accessories.

nine
Piling into the back of your friend's parents' explorer with 14 (yes, 14!) other giddy junior high kids to go to Hudsons for dinner after the big homecoming game...and piling back into the car with only 10 other giddy kids and 4 crying ones.  Oh, junior high love!

ten
Listening to you make spitting noises the whole way home from Memories after we had gone out to eat with Diane and Mike.  Ten minutes prior, we were all elbow-deep in trash cans looking for the binator that you had accidentally thrown away.

eleven
Helping you clean your bathroom when you found your old binator...and then asking if I could have it.  Good thing your mom stepped in!

twelve
Speaking of cleaning the bathroom...you know where this is going!  Getting into a knock-down, drag-out fight over feet and a pillow while watching Pollyana on TV, and receiving the punishment of cleaning the bathroom that you shared with Matt (ew!) while you cleaned your parents' already spotless bathroom.

thirteen
Breaking the rules and eating hot dogs and Fritos in the living room, freaking out and hiding our plates under your bed when your parents came home unexpectedly, and then telling your mom that Jasper was eating pencils when she wondered aloud why he kept going under your bed and coming out with yellow flakes around his mouth.

fourteen
Working our first jobs as lemonade waitresses at your dad's bank and spilling half of our drinks in an effort to beat one another to the "cool" cars.

fifteen
Sneaking into the kitchen with Liz at the Follis beach house and hovering over our sleeping Memmaw and Pappaw to steal three spoons and a carton of cookies and cream ice cream, which we took back to our room and demolished.  And then spending the next thirty minutes looking in the dark for your clear retainer that you haphazardly threw aside when the Blue Bell was opened.

sixteen
Driving home from Ripley and Shirley's house in the back seat of your dad's convertible, looking over at you with your neck craned out over the side of the door, and laughing when you said, "Now I know why dogs do this!  When I get home, I'm gonna drag my butt across the carpet and see what that's all about!"

seventeen
Clogging the toilet in the outhouse on Christmas Eve because we kept lighting matches to see our watches (Did Santa come yet?!) and then throwing them in the bowl when the flame reached our fingertips.  It never occurred to us to use one match to find the pull chain for the light.  But it did occur to us to blame the whole thing on Cody.

eighteen
Kidnapping a very disoriented Liz in the middle of the night to celebrate her 21st birthday by hanging out in your mom's car listening to Cartman's rendition of Oh Holy Night on repeat and drinking some Red Head Red wine.

nineteen
Filling the tops and bottoms of our bikinis with sand.  Why did we do that?!

twenty
Sitting on a cement stoop outside the snack bar at Mt. Lebanon, competing to see who could keep an atomic fireball in her mouth for the longest time.  Not only did you keep it in longer, but you also projected it farther when you had had enough!

twenty-one
Climbing out the window when Matt locked us in the bathroom after having spent ample time in there himself.

twenty-two
Dancing like fools with hundreds of little Zambian kiddos and fueling up for another crazy day with some lovely beef tips and crunchy rice.

twenty-three
Jamming out on the porch at the Farm while listening to the new cassette tape that Matt got for Christmas.  Okay, maybe I don't remember this one firsthand, but I've seen the video enough times to laugh out loud when I think about it.  My favorite move is the stationery foot tap - the one where you stand with one foot planted on the porch and repeatedly tap the other foot on the lower step, throwing a head bob in every once in a while for good measure.

twenty-four
Singing Ice Ice Baby with Kaylee Sue on your shoulders.  Um, you are by far one of the coolest moms ever!

twenty-five
Chillaxin' in your parents' pool with some Blue Bell to celebrate my new job in Plano.

twenty-six
Chillaxin' in your parents' pool a year later, celebrating what the Lord has done in both of our lives over the past twelve months.  Oh yeah, and spraying Rocko and Gracie in the face for a solid hour with Ava's alligator and shark water guns!

twenty-seven
Our favorite Winter Olympic sports: tractor sledding, tractor skiing, hay bale jumping, hay ring rolling, running from cows, and the occasional running from wayward fireworks.

twenty-eight
Playing Boggle with you and being amazed by your ability to spontaneously create definitions for your nonsensical words.  I don't remember the word, but I do remember that one definition was, "those little felt pads on the bottom of telephones."  Genius!

Thank you, my cousin and my friend, for all the laughs!