Ohhh Elaine...

Disclaimer: My sister is one of my best friends and we get along wonderfully. I lurve her to death and can't wait until she comes to Spain to play. That said, read on.

Growing up, my brother, my sister and I all had what could be defined as "roles" or "personality types." I have always been the mellow sarcastic one, my brother was traditionally the moody-broody one, and my sister has been and always will be the dramatic one.

In the photo is my 20 (or, according to the identification she is carrying at a given time, sometimes 24) year old sister. She looks like an all-American girl straight out of a wholesome small town lifestyle. If you were to create a little profile about her based solely upon first appearances, you'd probably go for the "attractive, intelligent, fun person, nice personality, good sense of humor, all around great person" route. Oh how naive and mistaken you would be...

I find that Elaine's existence can be more or less summed up by a scene from the cinematic gem "Mean Girls," starring Hollywood mess Lindsay Lohan. The referenced scene to which I refer is towards the end when Regina (aka Rachel McAdams) finds out that Lindsay Lohan's "Cady with a C" character had been giving her fattening energy bars instead of diet bars, thus causing her to gain 15 pounds right before the school's annual and highly anticipated Spring Fling dance. Stomping around and wielding a pair of scissors, Regina proceeds to shriek violently for the next five minutes of the film.

For much of my life, I was fully convinced that my sister suffered from a psychological disorder that required heavy medication... possibly to the point of sedation and brain-shock therapy. There was no middle ground with her. Elaine had exactly two modes: she was either asleep (mildly content) or awake (angrily psychotic). She fit the description of bipolarism to a tee, and I remember actually insisting to at least one of my parents that we needed to stage an intervention and get her into some psychological clinic for testing and observation, albeit against her will and despite the inevitable fact that she would try to fight back with her fangs and talons.

Trying to engage in any sort of conversation was like awakening an evil god from a 1,000-year slumber deep in the dark abysses of the underworld. The following are true life examples. If you were both sitting on the couch, and your pinky toe happened to be touching "her side," she'd scream at you. If you told her - after a volleyball game in which her team had won - that she/the team played well, she'd scream at you. If you asked her to grab a napkin from the counter right behind her chair at dinner, she'd scream at you. I once told her she had too much eyeliner on, and she screamed at me. If my mother even made a move that suggested she was going to speak, she'd scream at her. If you asked her if she wanted some of your ice cream sundae, she'd scream at you.

Following such an outburst, most typically while the rest of us attempted to enjoy a nice meal, she'd get angrier with each passing moment until the following sequence of events occurred:

• The following sound, first a deep rumbling in her throat before emerging as a full-blown shriek out of her mouth: "Ahhhghhghghhhrgggiiiiiiahhhhh!!!!"
• She would stomp up to her room, screaming as she went
• She'd slam her door
• She'd open her door again to scream out one more "I HATE YOU! Ahhhghghhhgriiiahhhhh!!!"
• She'd stomp around her room and throw objects against the door.
• She'd blast her "I'm angry" music at top volume.
• She'd plan her next angry letter to us all about how abused and tortured she was.
• She'd emit an assortment of shrieks, growls and other sounds that I assumed to be vocal yet sounded as though a scene straight from the Exorcist was transpiring within the confines of her room.
  

One of the worst possible things you could to yourself do was to end up in a situation that involved you and Elaine in a confined space with no bars, electric wire or other protective precautions separating you from "the beast"... in a car, for example. Once, Elaine's bitch button was switched on (ie she was awake) and started going off on anyone who was fortunate enough to be partaking in that same car ride. Under his breath, my brother muttered "psycho," clearly not a wise decision on his part. Seething with rage and with the vein in her forehead visibly pounding, she replied, in escalating decibal levels, "I.. am not... A...PSYCHO!!!"to which my exasperated brother could only respond "Look at her!" The high-pitched screaming that ensued cracked the windows and there has been an incessant ringing in our ears ever since that specialists have been unable to cure. For obvious reasons, this is one of our most referenced family stories.

For some reason, my mom voluntarily endured the psychological abuse thrown at her by my sister by continuing to go to Elaine's volleyball and lacrosse games. At said athletic events, cheery parents would come up to us - namely up to my mom - just to tell us how much their daughter just loved Elaine. How Elaine was just so gosh-darn nice-helpful-funny-interesting-thoughtful-caring. We'd naturally look behind us to see to whom this smiling parent was actually speaking. Seeing that we were alone and that this parent was indeed talking about Elaine, we'd think dumbfoundedly to ourselves, "her?"