Random memories of Emily

When Emily was still in elementary school, she would get on the bus, crawl into the back seat, and fall asleep on the way to school. The elementary school was the first stop, but at least once a week, Emily would be so fast asleep that she wouldn’t wake up. Our bus driver would get so mad at her because he had to go back out of his way to drop her off.

One time a couple of the high school boys got on the bus and they had obviously been drinking. Emily kept loudly asking why they smelled funny, and why they were laughing at everything. I told her to be quiet, that I’d tell her later, and then she wouldn’t quit asking why.

When I was in fourth grade, one of the junior high school boys was picking on Emily and made her cry. That afternoon, I promptly hunted him down in the neighborhood and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. Emily went to school the next day and proudly told everyone that her big sister beat up a “big boy”.

One day we were at K-Mart shopping for… “undergarments.” I was not in the mood to be shopping for these particular items of clothing anyway, and then to add to my embarrassment, I happened to see that the cutest boy in the fifth grade was just across the aisle. At that exact moment, Emily chose to hold up a size triple F and say at the top of her voice, “Here Melissa! This one has an underwire!!!”
I truly wanted to strangle her at that moment.

Four years ago Emily and I drove down to the beach house at the Outer Banks. Mom and Dad had driven down the previous week, but Em and I were only staying for one week. Anyway, I have a horrible fear of bridges and tunnels. Dad conveniently forgot to tell me that not only was there a horribly long, never ending bridge, but it went UNDERWATER. I was so mad I think I let loose a steady stream of curse words the entire time we were on that horrible piece of steel that I swear was held up by poles that were skinnier than Paris Hilton. Emily sat with her mouth open, and when I finally stopped the stream of obscenities, she called mom and dad and said, “Melissa has lost it, please help me.”

The next year, I convinced Emily to get back in the car with me, and we drove down to Sunset beach, which is a lovely, 8 hour-bridge-free-drive. When we got into North Carolina, we kept seeing these signs that said “J.R.’s”. Then we saw ones that said “JR’s Cigars”, “JR’s Dolls”, “JR’s Pottery.” We were trying to figure out what it was, and then we saw the sign that said “JR’s- the largest tourist trap in America.” Well, we couldn’t pass that up. So we stopped. And it was the largest tourist trap, filled with all kinds of junk. And Emily tried on every tacky hat in the place. I couldn’t get her out of that store.

One weekend Mom and Dad were out of town and Diana came over to spend the night. We got snowed in, and she stayed all weekend. We spent two whole days watching episode after episode of Friends.

At Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary party, I had one too many Midori Sours, and was starting to act a little goofy. I accidentally sat on the box that had the leftover cake in it. Everyone looked horrified for a second, probably afraid that I was going to get mad, but after I started laughing- Emily opened the box and said, “look y’all- we have a butt cake!”


Her boyfriend Mike sent me this little funny memory:
“I think this was her freshman year at Ship she called me to tell me she was cooking pasta for dinner and burned it really bad. As a joke I asked her if she used water (I thought everyone knew that). She asked me, realizing what she had done, "You need water for pasta?" I think I laughed so hard she hung up on me. Then a year or so later she called me to tell me she burned a bunch of rice the same way.”

She made us laugh, that’s for sure…..