My sister Jill told me that if I wrapped my naked body in Saran™ Wrap, I would be invisible, just like Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four.
The light, she said. Refraction.
I believed her, wrapped myself (with her help) completely in plastic cling wrap (our family didn’t actually have Saran™ Wrap; we used store brand everything except toilet paper), and went outside where the usual group of teenage kids were playing in the cul-de-sac.
It took some time for me to register that I wasn’t invisible, that the kids were staring at me, could see me very clearly through the cling wrap. It made for an awkward eighth grade year.
I probably should have treated her later suggestions with more skepticism. When she told me, for instance, that my dad would think it was funny if I took all the money out of his wallet and gave it to her. But only if I did it, she said. If she did it, it wouldn’t be funny. I didn’t think to ask why.
I think she had a very convincing personality, is what it was.
That’s the only explanation I have for when she told me that an awesome way to cook a turkey was to put it in the clothes dryer on medium heat for two hours, I believed her. Maybe because she told me it would be noisy. Which was why she suggested I leave the house for the two hours while the turkey was tumbling in the dryer.
I no longer fear hell, having smelled and then seen the aftermath of that poorly considered suggestion taken.
And thus, I have no good reason why, when she said that dating lifeguards was the best, because you couldn’t get pregnant by them, I believed her.
All the sun and chlorine, she said. It makes them sterile.
And it was this last that broke things between us. Because you know what sucks? Having kids by someone who only has a summer job. And skin cancer.
