If Kelli had been there, too? Oh dear God

The Sisters together are a force to be reckoned with. That sounds ominous, no? It’s pretty true, though. For example, you get the three of us together when we’re in pissy moods then baristas beware. Probably worse, is the three of us together when we feel feisty. No waitress will go away unscathed. It’s not that we’re mean – we’re just complicated.

“OK, this is what I want,” Ava told the guy at the counter. “I want the the mozzarella, fontina and basil pizza cut exactly in half with basil only on one side. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” the young man nodded and smiled. Ava was not confident that he did indeed understand.

“Exacty in half,” she reiterated.

‘OK,” he nodded again. Ava squinted her eyes at him and, standing next to her, I started the low chuckle I do when I know we’ve got about five more minutes of this conversation still to go.

“Use a ruler if you have to,” Ava suggested. “I don’t want it to show up at my table with the basil on a bigger half.”

“I think I’ve got it,” the guy started to sound bemused. Was this blond woman for real?

“Are you sure you’ve got it?” she asked him with a pointed expression. By now, I was truly laughing.

“I think you made your point,” I volunteered, trying to give the guy a break. Ava simply glared at me which did absolutely nothing to quiet my giggles.

She turned back to face the guy behind the counter. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she inquired.

He nodded clearly terrified of where this line of questioning could be going.

“Then you know what it’s like sharing with them.” He made a small movement of his head that indicated he’d had many of the same issues with his own siblings. “My sister here always gets the biggest half and I’m very hungry today.”

“I promise, it will be cut exactly in half.” He smiled at her. Gone was the fear of Ava’s apparently instability. In its place rested an expression of mutual understanding of the unfairness of hogging siblings.

Ava glances over to me with a wise-ass smile. “Mom always liked her best,” she tells him of me.

I order our tiramisu and my ice tea with much less trouble, and we saunter over to a table to wait. They bring our pizza and it does appear to have been measured with a circumfrence before it was sliced. The delivery person took our table number, though, and I express some concern that they won’t remember to bring us the tiramisu without the number.

“Don’t worry,” Ava told me around a bite of pizza with absolutely no greenery anywhere near it. “That guy won’t forget us.”

I snort. “Yeah, unless he up and quit.”

Note from Ava: This story is absolutely true.  I know I should be ashamed for tormenting the poor cashier – but I’m not.