Deb's Ramblings

My sister Deb is very interesting to say the least.

She is almost 8 years younger than me and a middle(ish) child.

Everyone says that each family has that one strongwilled child, well, Deb is ours. Ha ha ha. Of course, she is no longer a child, but a beautiful 24 year old woman. But the strongwillness (if that's even a word) has not ebated.

She's pretty quirky, our Deb. She sometimes marches to the beat of her own drum and sincerely finds herself to be very entertaining. She loves the smell of manure, can speak a very convincing "fake" Spanish and still ties bows using the "bunny ear" method.

But the best, most interesting, unique thing about Deb happens when she's asleep. Pretty much our whole family talks in our sleep. All 7 of us. I think. My dad has even been known to walk in his sleep. My mom and my brother pray in their sleep (literally!) and even my sister-in-law has said a word or two or three while sleeping. And yes, I've woken myself up many times rambling on about nonsense. But Deb has taken this to a whole new level.

When Deb talks in her sleep, there are props, storylines, arguments, laughter, yelling and movement. And she looks and acts just like she's awake. Usually after interacting with the sleeping Deb, I can't wait to tell her the next day, because it's so funny. Now I know some of you may be thinking, Oh My Word, that's SO SCARY! Ha ha ha. Well, since she's done it her whole life, it seems normal and actually funny, not scary at all.

Some of Deb's most memorable "talk times" where when she decided that the striped wallpaper by her bed was actually a board game and she proceeded to tell me how to play. She was looking at the wall and using her finger to point out the different areas on the wall that she imagined to be the game board. oy vey. Or the time she walked over to my stereo, picked up a cassette tape (yes, this was back in the days of cassette tapes!) and did the whole "bottoms up" motion like she was drinking out of a shot glass, complete with loud gulps as the "water" went down her throat. Ha ha ha! Or even more recently, she got up in the middle of the night and started going through some dress shirts, yelling and carrying on that my brother took some shoes and shirts out of the room. She was so mad at my brother I could almost see smoke coming out of her ears. (Actually now that I think of it, Deb would make an excellent cartoon character!)

Through the years, Deb has done some hilarious things. She's woken me up to hand me a glass of water. She's announced that my sister-in-law was releasing a record, she's constantly yelling at my brother, and she'll hold imaginary items in her hand and inspect them and ask how they got there.

Of course, each time I encounter the sleeping Deb, I immediately dismiss her by saying, "Deb, your talking in your sleep again", at which point that strongwilled part of her quickly glares at me and says, "NO I'M NOT!"

Sleeping Deb is actually pretty entertaining....

Queen C.