Zoey stands up to her sister
Zoey is a card.
In fact, if you actually had to select her from the deck, she would most likely be the joker. She’s filled with life and craziness, and when things are at their glummest, she finds a way to make you smile.
She still has a little bit of a kid speech thing going on, and we are all dreading the day when she’s completely outgrown it because it adds such color and emotion to her verbal passion. She is a complete contrast to her sister who is colorful in her own right.
During their typical arguments, the sisters will engage in back and forth verbal sparring that invariably involves some type of obscure fact, and each and every time there’s a fact involved, her older sister nails her. None of us can remember a time when Zoey has won one of these fact based arguments because Lucy is a walking Wikipedia.
According to her father, Zoey proudly made a significant announcement last Wednesday. She turned to her parents and sister and said, “I have something to tell you.” To which they almost simultaneously responded, “What is it?” She took a very deep breath, stood up from her seat on the floor, put her arms on her hips, smiled, and with complete conviction in her six-year-old voice, she exclaimed, “I’m in luv.”
That pronouncement threw everybody for loop. “What?” her father asked sternly? “I’m in luv, daaaad,” Zoey responded unceremoniously. Her mother said, “Well, honey, who is it that you love?” And before Zoey could answer, her sister began shouting out the names of various boys in her class. “Zack, Perry, Chase, Jason?” she asked. Zoey shook and shook and shook her head, “No, no, no, no, Lucy. I don’t love any of them.” “Well, then who do you love?” her sister said in a totally taunting tone.
“Well, he’s famous,” she said. “He a wace car dry-ver.” “A race car driver?” her dad asked. “Yes, daaaaaad,” she exclaimed with more attitude than any normal six-year-old can muster. “He’s a wace car dry-ver.”
Zoey’s mom and dad looked at each other in what could only be described as a bit of amazement because no one in their house had ever even seen a car race on television let alone know any of the drivers’ names.
Her sister immediately went into her Perry Mason cross examination. “What kind of a driver is he?” she asked. “Is he a NASCAR driver?” “Is he Formula One driver?” the nine-year-old pressed her. “What’s his name?” she asked. “Come on, Zoey, what’s his name, and what kind of car does he drive?”
The provoking went on almost unmercifully as one sister continued to push hard on the credibility of the other sister’s pronouncement. Finally, Zoey screamed out, “His name is Joey Logano, and I luv him!” she yelled. “I luv Joey Logano,” she insisted.
Her sister flew into high gear. “Okay, Zoey, if you loooooove him, then you must know what kind of a race car he drives,” Lucy said. “Do you know what kind of a car Joey Logano drives?” she jeered.
“Yes, yes, I know what kind of car my boyfriend drives,” Zoey insisted. Things had gotten pretty intense between the siblings as Lucy attempted once again to discredit her veracity. It was not unusual for Zoey to make some type of pronouncement and then be proven completely wrong or more likely be embarrassingly exposed for having made up the entire story. Lucy was going in for the kill. “Come on, Zoey, if you love him so much what does he drive? Lucy yelled.
Zoey dug in deep, planted her feet, arms still on her hips and yelled, “He drives a STAH_CK CAR,”she yelled, “A Foord Fusion.” Her parents collapsed in laughter. She did know. Zoey loves a 25-year-old stock car driver who drives a Ford Fusion. Asked and answered.
Nick Jacobs of Pittsburgh is the international director for SunStone Management Resources and author of the blog healinghospitals.com.