My Version of Sister Stories  - The right one (maybe, but I have the blog...) Volume One - Part 16

So I have been threatening since I started this blog (please see sidebar to the right) that my sisters, who encouraged me to start a blog, would one day find themselves mentioned in said blog. So times up girls! All of your lovely wishes for my birthday reminded me of all the stories I had yet to tell… insert music indicating doom: dum dum DUMMMMM.

For those of you who don’t know, I have two older sisters. I will not say their age or mine because who needs to know these things. What you should know is that the gap is wide enough that I was too young to remember much of the mean years. (Although there are a few stories…) Instead most of my memories are of my cool teenage sisters who could drive, taking me with them.

I begin this series of tales with our first trip alone together. It is just us, no parents or anything. We fly to Hawaii. Our Grandpa lived there who we love and miss. Now, one of the many things I love about Michelle is that when she travels, she plans fun side excursions to places she has seen on TV or the movies. For instance, on this trip, we need to have a few days in Maui to visit the Seven Sacred Pools which Meg Ryan mentioned in I.Q. Also we have to visit the waterfall used in the opening scene of Fantasy Island. You know, “Da Plane! Da Plane!” We fly from the Big Island to Maui on one of those little planes that make you feel like you might die. But on this particular plane, you know you won’t die because they are playing a Hawaiian song on loop and the stewardess sings to it as she dances up and down the aisle. I am pretty sure that you will never crash if the stewardess is dancing and singing.

We arrive in Maui and rent our convertible. That’s right, a convertible because Michelle planned the trip and if you are going to rent a car in Hawaii it doesn’t make any sense to have a normal car. And we drive straight to the waterfall.  I am sixteen and expecting my future boyfriend to be around any corner or the one I just came around or the one just up ahead. Any boyfriend would do… JUST ANY BOY… I digress. So I was wearing a knee-length flower dress with buttons in the shape of roses, white fold-down socks and the generic version of Keds. Because dresses and tennis shoes are awesome. And one should really look their best when shopping for their boyfriend in Hawaii . Anyway, Michelle, as always, is impeccably dressed in cute shorts, a fancy top and some gold-embellished strappy sandals.

We park at the trail head. Marleen eyes the steep start of the climb and decides someone should stay up the top and take a picture… One of the things I love about Marleen, is her ability to endlessly encourage you and she is always up for an adventure. Hand her a plane ticket to anywhere in the world, you don’t even have to tell her the destination, she will have a small perfectly packed bag and go. However, this is balanced with her ability to say “you all are nuts” and “I’m out”. But she does it with such tact. For instance, in this case. she looks at the trail head and says with actual sincere encouragement, ‘I am sure you guys can totally do it… you might just want to wear… like different clothes and shoes… I mean Mel is wearing… like …’ she eyes me up and down trying to decide what exactly I am wearing… ‘Her party dress.’ Michelle and I decided that it can’t be that steep all the way. It's not that we are reckless; we just assume things can’t be as bad as they seem. We are wrong it only gets steeper… vertical would be the best way to describe it. Also for some reason the ground is the consistency of peanut butter (which could be why it seems so steep). I become slightly worried about my boyfriend-meeting dress and suggest to Michelle that we come back another day perhaps more, hikerly dressed… Now one thing is for certain. In our little circle of sisters Michelle is in charge. We do as she says and if she says, “We are going to have fun” then you snap to attention and do as she says. This may seem unfair but it is not because she would throw herself in traffic for either of us and can be counted on in the scariest as well as the best moments of life. Also. I am quite confident that if I ever need anyone murdered because they are very bad (I would only murder very bad people) she would  help set that up for me or (because she is a law abiding citizen and apparently in this hypothetical I am not) she would bail me out or visit me every day in prison. Also, if I was in prison, she would make sure no one was mean to me in there. So because of this, and the fact that, if she says we are going to have fun, we probably will… And because she says so… I follow her on.

We come to a point where it is so vertical you have to navigate using a climbing rope. It is a steep drop over one side. I am wondering why they didn’t just use one long rope instead of several short ones when it becomes clear. She and I find ourselves on the same rope. Everything slows right down for a few seconds - I see her slip on the cute little sandals in front of me and then I feel a jerk on the rope. Instead of dropping it, I hold on tighter and suddenly find I am dangling off the side of the cliff. I can’t quite place where I am. I seem to now be hanging in some sort of foliage with no ground under my feet and I can’t understand how I got there.  I am perfectly calm, just confused.

Michelle starts screaming, ‘Melody! Are you dead?!’

I look up to see her panic stricken face above me.

‘No I’m fine!’

‘I couldn’t see you! I thought you were dead!’ She says as she hoists me back up. Michelle then decides we should come back ready for a hike. I follow obediently and she takes the sandals off deciding barefoot is safest. We climb a ways when I hear.

‘Shoe… shoe. Save the shoe!’ The slippery sandal is careening down the peanut butter slope, but I make the dive and retrieve it. Sandal saved. When we get to the top, my dress is covered in mud. Marleen laughs at us and takes a picture of the dress. I never did get the stain out; this I use as exhibit A for why I never had a boyfriend. There are exhibits B through Z as well but there will be time enough for that humiliation later.

Epilogue - We returned the next day with proper foot gear and dressed in swimming suits… you know because we were going to swim in the waterfall. I am followed the entire way down the hike by a swarm of mosquitoes.

I keep saying, ‘I think I am being attacked…’

Michelle keeps saying, ‘There are no bugs! Stop being dramatic!” (It may come as a surprise to you that I have a slight tendency toward the dramatic but this should not sway you. I was not being dramatic here. In this case, it was the normal amount of drama being falsely blamed for previous excessive dramaticness.) We reach the bottom and Michelle is determined to get to the waterfall. I watch as she navigates the edge of the lake which looks like a vertical rock wall into the water. This is confirmed when, in order to continue, she must do her best impression of spider man and shimmy her way across. She does this while yelling, ‘Mel come on! It will be great!’ I am sure that I will not make it on the strength of my finger tips but I have come this far so I yell back that I will swim. (If you need a visual for how I "swim" see this post… ) I scoot into the water and flail forward a bit until I see something moving in the clear water. It is a Black Water Scorpion the size of a small dog and the most deadly kind. (This may or may not be the scientific name. Also, there may or may not be any such thing actually in the world but I am sure that is what it was.) I flail and sputter my way back to the edge. Michelle is waving me over. I try to explain about the Black Water Scorpion but she has made it to the water fall and can’t hear me. We pose for Marleen taking the photo above us. On our return to the hotel, Michelle states she has a few mosquito bites. I have a total of 40 on my legs alone… Marleen just shakes her head.