The labels.

Is that your Mom?

It was never the question really...it was the look on her face. 

You and your Mom can have a seat here.

Can we? Well, thanks, but, she is NOT my mother!  We are four years apart!  Sometimes I wanted to scream at them. 

 

These are my, “DAUW-GH-TERS”. 

Is that your son? 

God, it was confusing.  Adults...

What do they mean?  Are they stupid?

“SHE HAS BOOBS!” I wanted to yell.

I never did.  Not once.

 

It evolved.  No longer perceived to be of the male gender, she graduated quickly to being a senior citizen. 

The first few times it happened I pretended it didn’t, almost as well as she did.  I quickly learned to be pro-active, as my Mother had before me. 

 “This is my SISTER and we would like....”

Echos of ‘these are my DAUW-GH-TERS...’

It was futile.  She heard them. She felt their words.  Their words hurt. 

 

 

It was years before we joked about it.  I tried to make the ignorant people absorb the brunt of the joke but she and I both knew she owned the role.  

‘The girls’, for definition.  ‘The girls’, for clarification.  ‘The girls’, for reference.  ‘The girls’, for affection. 

Our identities amalgamated into one. 

It was a prerequisite for the future existence of the dynamic duo.