Ready or Not

Top ten reasons why my sister Lucy has it way better than I do:

10. Because of saving the president, and all, I’m a celebrity, so whenever I do something really stupid—such as wear my shirt to school inside out, as I occasionally do before I’ve had enough caffeine to fully wake myself up—I can always count on a picture of it showing up in People or Us Weekly (Celebrities—They’re just like us!).

9. While Lucy may have bombed the SATs, she never actually does anything as stupid as wearing a shirt inside out, so even if she had saved the president and was a national celebrity, they would never print pictures of her looking this dumb anywhere. Because this would never happen to her. She always looks perfect everywhere she goes, no matter how early in the morning.

8. She is dating a teen rebel who owns a motorcycle, even if she is not allowed to ride on it with him, and gets to do cool stuff like go to the opening night of a performance art piece featuring a punk rock band throwing pieces of raw meat at a screen on which are projected various photos of world leaders. Whereas I am dating the president’s son, so I get to do fun things like go to the opening night of Tosca at the Kennedy Center with the various world leaders themselves, which isn’t anywhere near as fun.

7. When I get my photo in Us Weekly almost every single week, wearing an inside-out shirt or whatever, it’s usually right next to Mary-Kate and Ashley. If Lucy were the celebrity, and not me, you can bet her picture would be next to someone way cooler, like Gwen Stefani.

6. Tons of designers send me free clothes, begging me to wear them instead of my inside-out shirts, so that their clothes will be in Us Weekly. Except of course I have to send most of them back, because my parents won’t let me wear leather bustiers and, also, unlike Lucy, I do not have the chest to hold up a bustier. Lucy would totally get to keep them.

5. My boyfriend apparently calls sex Parcheesi. I don’t know what Lucy’s boyfriend calls it. But I’m guessing probably not that.

4. Lucy can figure out sales tax in her head. Oh, and she can do a back handspring. All I can do is draw a naked guy. And apparently, I can’t even do that very well, since I concentrate on the parts and not the whole.

3. Mom and Dad totally like—and trust—my boyfriend. Lucy’s boyfriend? Not so much. So they spend hours arguing with her about him, telling her she could do better, et cetera. Mom and Dad basically ignore me.

2. I have only one friend—my best friend, Catherine, who is so sweet and sensitive I can’t even tell her about my boyfriend possibly wanting to have sex with me over Thanksgiving weekend on account of it would freak her out since she doesn’t even have a boyfriend anymore (unless you count the one in Qatar, which I don’t), whereas Lucy has nine million friends who she can tell anything to because they are completely shallow and have no emotions. Like cyborgs.

And the number-one reason why Lucy has it way better than I do:

1. She’s clearly already lost her virginity and has put it behind her, since it was obviously no big deal to her. It is a huge deal to me, however, which means I will probably be stuck with it (my virginity) until my thirties, or death, whichever comes first.