How I know my sister is devoted to her husband.

brad
Originally uploaded by GypsyPeach.

I've written before about my friend Brad being my hero and kicking ass. Aside from his general kick-assitude, (aw, look at him humoring me on Thanksgiving by not shooting me his best "I Hate Being Photographed" Death Glare. He's single, ladies; line forms to the left), I will now tell you a story about me, Brad, and my sister, and yes, it will retrospectively reveal her devotion to her new husband.

When I was in first grade, my mom took us to her school's annual FunFest in May, and miracle of miracles, both Amanda and I won goldfish in little bowls by bonking them on the head with ping pong balls. Go, us.

After whipping ourselves into a frenzy brought on by prolonged exposure to funnel cake and cheap plastic crap, my mom piled us and the Plotner kids into her little hatchback Datsun and drove us home. I still can't figure out how we all fit, except that we were small, Greg may have not been with us, and everyone in the entire Plotner clan has always been a skinny marvel of metabolism. Also, I was scrunched into the fun, seatbelt-free zone under the hatchback door known to children of the 80s as "the way back."

I cooed lovingly over my goldfish in its inflated plastic baggie almost the whole way home, until we stopped at a red light by the Fulton Bank, Hayden Zug's and Gargano's in East Bumblefuck. I leaned forward to say something, putting the plastic fish baggie over the barrier between the way back and the backseat. Amanda leaned back, popped my fish baggie and SCREAMED BLOODY MURDER as my goldfish flopped spasmodically around on the seat.

Brad calmly took Amanda's plastic fish baggie out of her hands, gently loosened the knot, and being my hero, plucked my dying fish off the seat and plopped him in with Amanda's fish. I'm giving you all this background because you need to know that dealing with dead and dying pets, especially slimy dead pets, has never been Amanda's, um, specialty.