Guinea Pig in Space

May 4, 2026

I couldn’t bear to spend the night, so I drove home early that evening. My husband got home from work, and we decided to put on a light movie to decompress. Mean Girls is not one of my favorites, but he’d never seen it. We settled in for some delicious dissociation.

Somewhere between Cady making her own burn book and Regina getting hit by a bus, we got the call. Back up to Wisconsin we went.

What happened next is a blur. I know that all of my mom's kids were there, and her husband. And I recall heading home at 1 or 2 in the morning, following my sister's taillights down the empty roads. Her exit came about 40 miles before mine. As our cars parted ways, she texted me to be safe.

Weird. Our relationship isn’t usually like that.

Actually, she is a big Mean Girls fan. I wonder if this difference between us could be the key to our odd relationship. Growing up, it felt like we each played a role. She was the pretty one, and I was the smart one. She paid special attention to her appearance, and I thought I was an anti-conformist. Damn. Now that I think of this, it is not unlike the premise of Mean Girls.

It’s a stupid way to divide two people. My sister is a very smart person. And while I'm no supermodel, I don't feel the need to wear a paper bag over my head in public. I'm just a normal-looking person somewhere between Gisele Bündchen and Quasimodo.

My sister and I butted heads a lot. She was mean. In elementary school she used to hide my hair brush before school, and then taunt me for not brushing my hair once we got there. Bitch.

But I was a jerk too. One time as a young teenager I ordered a free copy of CosmoGirl! magazine to the house, addressed to her as Ugly Ugly Jasmine. She chased me home from the mailbox. Frankly, I still think this is funny. (Bitch.)

No one explicitly said "You're the pretty one, and you're the smart one." I think part of it came from her desire to emulate my mom, whose messaging was always "It's important to be attractive."

And another part of it was created through my opposition to my sister. Like my mom, she wanted to be the most beautiful person in the room. As the younger sister, I wanted to forge my own identity. I would be what I believed she was not.

Other people reinforced the dynamic, including our parents. Shit, it started at birth. My actual given name is akin to something you’d call a barnyard animal. My sister is named after a damn flower.

This continued over the years. My sister is the only one of us who had braces, for example. I definitely needed them, and now I walk the world with the Appalachian-issued teeth of my forefathers. (I mean, they’re crooked. I have managed to keep the rot away.)

Maybe they figured I didn’t care. I certainly pretended not to.

My mom was deeply concerned with physical appearance. She was also deeply concerned with what other people thought. When I was 13, she took me to get a haircut. It was the best my hair had ever looked.

I was not a popular kid in junior high. Like, I was genuinely picked last in gym class. But I went to school with my new hair and got a lot of compliments.

I still remember what my mom said when I came home and told her. "Are you sure they weren't making fun of you?"

Well, shit.

I had been sure, but now I wondered if they were just bullying me without my knowledge. Seventh grade was brutal. I used to go to homeroom and daydream about switching places with the class guinea pig. No one cared about its hair.

My reaction was to shove away from the expectations entirely. In doing so, I also shoved away from both my mom and my sister. I did a little space walk; still attached to the ship, but floating out there on my own.

Most of the time, anyway. My friend’s older sister did my hair before our fourth grade concert. It was a rare thing to be invited into her sacred teenage bedroom. She gave me a bun with perfect little ringlets and finished it off with a fine mist of glitter spray.

My own sister would never.

These days, the closest thing we have to a sisterly bond is that sometimes she’ll try to pawn off unwanted clothes and shoes. I have developed my own sense of style since my mismatched middle school days, so my answer is usually a polite but emphatic no.

We’ll probably never be the kinds of sisters who braid each other’s hair (or even hug), but we have a decent relationship now.

I also have a decent relationship with my mom now, because she is dead.

When my husband’s mom calls, I see “Mom” pop up on his phone and think for a split-second that it’s her.

I wish I could call her.

And sometimes I still wish I were a guinea pig.