The day the oil ran out (15)

I let Slowy take a break as I could see she wanted to watch butterflies. She was somewhat of a free spirit unlike me and wasn't used to being chained to a house. I mean I was now used to it and accepted my fate but that was because I experienced severe Stockholm Syndrome under Mum's regime. It was hard for me to even think of leaving. Where would I go, and what would I do? I felt like Scarlett O'Hara when Rhett leaves her, telling her he didn't give a damn because she won't leave Tara. Or was it Ashley. I didn't know anymore my head hurt, so I thought the best thing to do was to have a cup of tea and a lie-down.

Dad made me a cup of tea and after finishing it I lay down on my bed. I soon fell asleep, exhausted. 
I didn't awake from my nap till I heard a familiar voice. 

Eh eh. Earth to Selina, earth to Selina. 
I woke to find my sister standing over me. 
What, is this all a dream? Aren't you mean to be in London? I said, semi-accusingly. How did she magically appear just like that? Genie, or just being Glennis?
I rang you from Nicole's. I've been back for a week. But I can't walk the Milford Track now because of this rather inconvenient oil crisis or even go back to London, since all flights are cancelled and nobody can get out so I guess I'm stuck with you here.
She grinned, seeing if I would take the bait.

Oh, I said. Well I can't really afford to hang out with you because I need to find a job. The car won't go.  And you can't borrow my bicycle because it's been stolen. 

My sister liked hanging out at trendy cafes and shopping malls, and seeing shows and dining out and all that jazz. My idea of a fun social time was,  a cup of tea and scone at church, while people asked me how I was and if I was  busy at work (No, because when they asked me it was Sunday, and I didn't as a rule do any work on Sunday). Also she wouldn't get the whole praising the Lord thing, and that you could sit anywhere in church you liked and didn't need to book or buy a ticket. That or reading library books. My sister never read library books, she always bought magazines. 

Aw chin up. She said. I bought you this Gardeners World magazine. I'm sure you'll find something. We can just put all the bills on my credit card. You can pay me back when you've got a job.

Ok. I flicked through the magazine. I came to an article with the heading 'What To Do Now'. It had no less than 50 things to do for the month of May. 

The day the oil ran out (14)

A familiar face appeared on my facetime. My sister, and she was saying "Good news, I am coming home".
"Huh, what? Wow, when why how?"

My sister said not to worry about a thing it would all be taken care of. She must have seen the look of relief on my face as my worry lines uncreased. See, my sister had a cushy job in marketing and had squirreled away hundreds and thousands of pounds due to favourable exchange rate and hedge funds, while I was still trying to get Slowy to mow the lawn and clip the hedge for chump change.

She was older, wiser, and probably mortified that Dad had designated me default head of the household in her absence. What are big sisters for if not to step in and stop their hapless little sisters from falling off her *borrowed* bicycle? As my sister seemed so sure of herself, I did not question it.

See I don't know how she would get to Auckland when the airplanes were no longer flying, nor pay the bills and handle Dad's vinyl revival obsession, cook dinner each night, clean the bathroom, mop the floor, take out the garbage, feed the cat and chicken, weed the garden, do all the laundry, but then this was my sister, she was Wonder Woman and could do everything, and hold down a full time job to boot.

Maybe I could sleep easy tonight and eat those chips and icecream Dad kept proffering me after all. It seemed the burden had lifted off my shoulders and the world would carry on, because my sister would be running the show.

Thank God for Big Sisters!

The day the oil ran out (13)

My patience was being tested. I had one day to find a new job, and the day was coming near to an end. The bills were piling up. We weren't winning lotto. And Slowy was so slow, she would never eat the grass to a good enough standard to get to the minimum 300 millimetres required by Auckland Transport to be a serviceable berm. And the oil had run out. Did I mention the oil had truly run out?

I looked at my options. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Option 1. Sell up and move Dad to the Waitakere Gardens, where I could live as a guest squatter as long as I kept my profile low. 

Option 2. Ring my ex-boyfriend in rehab, and become his accountability person. I will stop him from taking dangerous drugs, and be paid as a support worker. As long as he acknowledges he has a problem that will never get better. 

Option 3. Run away and join the circus. Shortland Street needs more people all the time. I could act as a kooky mental patient, and make a tonne of money on the long running series, as long as it continued to be on air. Perhaps even more if I had a special kind of illness that meant I could play multiple characters. 

I was in the process finding out the number of the Waitakere Gardens retirement village when I heard a familiar ringtone. It was my Facetime. My sister! What could she want, plus it was 3 in the afternoon. Why would she be calling me all the way from London in the early hours of her morning?