the sheets

Unless this is your first stop by my blog, you have probably realized, Dear Reader, that my sister and I are thick as thieves. (and if this is your first stop at my blog, welcome, New Reader!) She is without a doubt my best friend, I would do anything for her, and she me. And although we are great friends, we still have areas of contention. In our younger years we would scream and pull each others hair, but now we usually say a few biting words and move on our way. One such area of contention is my brother-in-law. It has taken me quite a while to realize that just because he would never be someone I would marry, doesn't mean that he can't make my sister happy. And he does. He makes her so happy. So even though I don't always see that, and I am annoyed most of the time by his behavior, it doesn't make him a bad person or husband. It just makes him a bad husband for me. And thank heavens I don't have to marry him.

My brother-in-law, R, travels at least one night a week for his work. During the winter, these trips are usually legit business trips, in the summer, he golfs. While R is away, I move into Chez Brown and help my sister with the kids. There is, you see, a strict 2 adult at all times policy in the Brown home, or so the family jokes. One of the many perks to staying at my sisters is that we get to have sleep overs. We get cozy in her giant king-sized bed, watch movies, or talk about how crazy my mom is.

Now, this is the part in the story where I will tell you that one of my co-workers (who does not have a sister) was completely weirded out by the fact that we sleep in the same bed. I have no issues with this (although it was kind of weird when she was pregnant, I'll be honest with you) and especially because the bed is so large I don't even know she's there. So stop judging now, please.

Without fail, on the day I "move out," my sister will strip the sheets off the bed to wash them, first thing in the morning. The vigor with which she does this is unparalleled, and one would think that I carry some sort of disease or bug. She never washes the sheets before I come, always after. And this offends me.

I have asked her a few times why she washes the sheets right after I leave, and she's given me a few silly answers like, "well, they needed to be washed anyway," and "R likes to come home to clean sheets." Both valid reasons, I suppose, but also valid reasons to wash the sheets before I arrive too.

She doesn't seem to understand how insulting it is for her to wash the sheets after I leave, but never before. Like it's ok for me to sleep on their filthy sex sheets, but it's not ok for R to sleep on the sheets that I do nothing in. I don't sweat, I don't drool, I don't wet the bed, and I'm pretty sure I don't have any unusual bugs on me. So why not wash them for me?

A similar situation occurs with the garage. I typically park on the street at my sisters, to avoid being in any one's spot. However, when R is out of town, I'm not usually driving my car, so I park it in his spot. (His spot, I'll tell you, is on the right hand side, because there are ladders on the wall that the car is parked next too, and it's hard to get M out of the car without hitting the door against the ladder, or his or your head. R, however, can't ever remember this, and usually parks in the wrong spot. Which annoys me to no end.) Back to the story:

So sometimes my car is parked in the garage when he gets home. Usually my sister will ask me to move my car to the street if she has an idea that I won't be gone before he gets home (I usually try to vacate the premises before he comes home). So I trudge outside, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the snow, sometimes in the cold, to move my car to the street.

When you ask K why I have to move my car, she says so R can bring his luggage straight into the house, and he doesn't have to get wet, cold, snowed on, etc. (She has started to just take my car keys and move my car herself, which is maybe even more annoying than me having to move my own car, simply because she is a half a foot shorter than I am, and moves the seat up in my car, and never moves it back, so when I get in my car to eventually depart, my knees are in the dashboard and I have suffered bruises and the like.)

Ok, so R can't bring in his belongings from outside of the garage ... but I can. Because usually I have a bag with my overnight stuff in it, plus a basket of laundry I've done. See? See, Dear Reader, how I have to do these things, but R doesn't? K doesn't want R to have to worry after a long day of work, but guess what, I've had a long day of work too, taking care of her kids! (Which, I shouldn't even bring M and C into this, because I'm more than happy to spend every minute of every day running after them, picking their noses and cleaning up their poop. Really, those boys are everything to me.) Also, when, heaven forbid, I don't get a chance to move my car from the garage before he gets home, he always blocks the garage so I can't get out without him (or K) moving the car so I can get out. I would never, ever think of doing that, I would always park on the street. Why can't he do the same?

So really, what it comes down to, is when presented with the same situation, R always wins. I get the crap stick, and he is treated like a king. Maybe it's because of some unseen husband-wife dynamic that I will eventually understand when my eyes have been opened to the wonders of marriage, but for now, I feel like a second class citizen.

Now, I don't expect anything to change soon. I don't ever say anything to her anymore about it, because K doesn't seem to understand. And until I started writing all of this, I didn't realize how fired up I am about it. Which seems so silly. Because it's just sheets and parking spots. But deep down, I think it's more than that.

And maybe that's why I'm not married. Because I don't get it. What ever it is.