It is odd how one place can make me feel so much comfort, bliss, peacefulness, and maniac hyper ness. This place is not exactly comfortable but it gives my soul a sense of comfort. The place I am referring to odd enough, is my little sister’s bedroom floor. You could not count the hours we spent just sitting in silence for the sake of feeling someone else’s presence, laughing, crying, laughing so hard we began laughing crying and coughing and choking, dancing like crazed monkeys that could not reach the tick on their back, hiding from my mom when we heard her say “Jewels, Jocelyn come and clean the kitchen” or “Who spilt sugar all over the kitchen floor!!” and simply becoming closer as sisters. Reminiscing brings back all the boisterous times I spent on my little sister’s bedroom floor.
Lying on her bedroom floor I could always smell a slight stench of dead ladybugs. Ohio always has a numerous amount of lady bugs, after the farmers cut the fields. And seeing how we lived by four fields; we got a lot of lady bugs in our house. I would lie on the floor watching them all crawl into the corners of Jewels’ ceiling. I thought how weird it would feel to touch them all huddled in the corner together; smooth and bumpy. But I would not dare touch them; it would make them fly all over the place and start giving off that disgusting smell. Plus for some reason Jewels is scared to death of lady bugs. I remember once one landed on her and she screamed. I of course just sat there and laughed “It’s just a harmless lady bug!” “No this one is kind of orange; it will bite me!” It was so funny how she was scared of lady bugs but whenever I came running into her room crying because I saw a spider she would act like a knight in shining armor going to kill another dragon, same old story, no big deal. “I will just squish it,” she’d say. But of course you cannot squish a lady bug they make this horrible crunching noise and then start smelling horrible. You cannot describe the smell it was simply “the dead lady bug smell” That is probably why her floor always stunk like that because during that time of year if you were not watching your step you would here a “crunch” and look down to see a dead lady bug on the floor. So there were a lot of them dead on the floor and it made the floor smell. Jewels and I hate “the dead lady bug smell” but it comes with the season in Ohio and it brings back the funny memories of lady bugs.
Before I get too off track I should explain why I was always on Jewels’ floor. It is not like I prefer sitting on her floor that was always full of dust bunnies because she cannot clean properly and dirty laundry. Every once in a while I would sneak on her bed next to her but she would not notice because she was always reading. Her butt was constantly glued to her bed and her eyes to a book. Her eyes were like a freight train and the words on the pages were the train tracks. Once she got going she would not stop unless acted upon by an outside force. That force is me, or more like in me. Let me extend on this. It would be completely silent except for the turning pages of Jewels’ latest novel. Flip….flip….flip. All of a sudden; as my younger sister Jasmine puts it; we would hear this noise as if a balloon was slowly exhaling. I could feel the bed rumble slightly. Also, as Jasmine puts it we could smell a smell of rotten eggs. “Really! And on my bed!” Jewels would exclaim. Bam! I would be booted to the floor. I had farted again; I may be a girl but even my family expects this from me. After all from all that food that I shove in my mouth one can expect that kind of force to come out of me. I would slowly gain her trust to go back on her bad; I did not enjoy that uncomfortable hard floor. “I promise I will not fart!” Naturally the balloon pops this time and it smells of six day old sour milk. I meet the cold familiar floor once again. Just lying on the floor was boring but I did not want to leave. I would just start talking about random stuff. She would act uninterested but twenty minutes later her big blue eyes would look over at me with a sign of annoyance. We would actually have a conversation. It becomes ten at night and we are both sitting on the floor slap happy. We would keep sitting there laughing about the stupidest things or tell each other to slap one another to see if you could truly be slap happy. “Be quiet! You brother and sister are trying to sleep!” My mom would remind us. We just kept doing stupid stuff until I began crying from laughing so hard then coughing, then lying on the floor gasping for air like a fish out of water. Even that was funny to us. My gassy ways made for a good funny night with Jewels and I laughing like hyenas on her rough bedroom floor.
A lot of times there was food involved in the memories Jewels and I shared. For instance I can remember how during the winter I would sit in front of her heater to stay warm. Then she would walk in with tortilla chips covered in cheese. I cannot stand the smell of tortilla chips; it is just something about the salty strong smell. It makes it hard for me to breathe. Jewels knew this and used it as a way to get me out of her room. But I just fought back with the smell of food I knew she hated. When I visited them for Christmas break I went into Jewels’ room with a can of tuna. I love tuna as much as Jewels hates lady bugs. I eat it straight out of the can. Jewels gets disgusted by the smell. Plugging her nose she would yell, “GET OUT OF MY ROOM THAT SMELLS SICKENING!!” I was comfortable where I was in front of her heater so I would not leave but it always made her so mad and me cheerful. Other times she would tease me with popcorn. She makes the best homemade popcorn; she puts sugar in it with canola oil. It tastes absolutely remarkable! Anyways I would sit on her floor and talk to her while she read and she would go make that delicious popcorn. She would sit there and munch on it right in front of me like I did not like popcorn or something. I begged her for some and tried to make puppy faces at her she would give me one piece and the lick the whole bowl. I laughed. Does she really think licking it will make me not want it.” I thought to myself. When she was not looking I would sneak some popcorn and eventually eat it all. Jewels and I liked to have food wars in her room with smell and teasing with taste.
Some might think that me saying my sister’s bedroom floor is one of my favorite places to be is peculiar. However, after my older brother left to go live with my dad I was devastated. He was my only sibling I had never been apart from my whole life for more than a couple days. I was a lost puppy. I would wonder around aimlessly into Jewels’ room and on her floor just to get rid of my feelings of lost and isolation because Jesup was the one I always went to for comfort. I realized how distant I was from my sister. All those times on her floor were boisterous and foolish but other times soothing. The times made us come closer as sisters and made me love life a little more. Now looking back I wish I had appreciated the comfort her jungle like floor gave me.