A day with sis

Sis lay on her bed, watching a meat video on Instagram.

"I need to make up my own prompt and write about it," I read from the phone.

"Meat."

"Meat?"

"Yeah, meat."

"Why meat? What kind of meat?"

"I don't know. I'm just watching a meat video right now," Sis chuckled.

"Ohhhkaayy...."

"It's really interesting. See?" Sis stuck her phone under my nose, in between me and my phone.

"Argh! I'm trying to type, here!" I try to move my head, but she moves the phone as well, consistently blocking the view of my phone.

"Just watch it!" She shoves it under my nose again.

"Okay, fine, fine," I take the phone from her hand and watch the video. "That was...."

"Interesting, right?!"

"No, actually...."

"Then what? Kinda neat? Cool?"

"No. No. Kinda gross actually, sorry. You should know I'm not into that stuff." I cringe.

"Yeah true. Okay, fine, but it was informative, at least!"

"I knew all that already from my Humanimals in Japan class last year."

"Oh, okay."

"Oh, Mom says we should go see a show, check out all the squares, watch a tennis match from the US open, have afternoon tea, and just soak up the New York atmosphere," I read from my phone. "I did want to see a Broadway show."

"Oh...." Sis muttered an expletive. "Right, you did. Hmmm.... Chicago?"

"Ooh, yeah! Do you know the plot though?"

"Yeah, and it's, like, Burlesque, so yeah."

"Yeah, I thought you might go 'ai ya!' at the costumes."

"Yeah, I probably would. Okay- oooh! What about 1984?"

"Nooooo...."

"In a good or bad way?"

"Bad. Sorry, but yeah, no, kill me first please. I really did not like that book," I groan.

"I loved it."

"Nuh uh, sorry. And no Lord of the Flies, either. Didn't like that one."

"Oh, I loved those," she flapped a hand to her heart.

"Nope, sorry."

"Okay... Miss Saigon?"

"Oooh! I've heard of it but don't know what it's about." Kathleen from the original Hi-5 gang was in that show before she went into Hi-5, from what I know.

"Bronx streets?"

"Never heard of it."

I return to my phone for a bit, and she yawns.

"I'm tired," she rubs her eyes.

"Do you want a nap?"

"Do you?" Sis asks me back.

"I'm fine either way, you?"

"Do you mind...?"

"No, go for it."

"Sweet, thank you. Are you going to nap too?"

"Eh, probably not. I have writing to do. On your meat. Probably on you watching that meat video and actually finding it interesting."

"Ha ha, okay."

I look at the time. "It's 2:30 now so I'll wake you up at... 5? Your coffee thing is at 6."

"4 would be fine."

"Okay, will do."

She flops down onto her bed and is asleep in moments.

I sit in the corner, in her chair, pondering what to write for the blasted prompt, getting sleepier with every minute. There's just something about the air in the room when someone is sleeping, that makes you sleepy, too. I decide to close my eyes for a few minutes- maybe it'll give me more inspiration before I start writing. About five minutes of shut-eye later, a siren passes by, and I open my eyes while sis raises her head, just to drop it down again with a moan.

She's asleep again in seconds.

I hop onto Duolingo to complete my daily Spanish practice, and go through a few lessons on Family, before opening Tsuro to see how well I can do against the bot today. It's nearly 4 pm, anyways, so I play until she wakes up. I finish two games before checking the time- 4:05. "Hey, it's 4:05 now, time to get up."

Sis groans again and pushes herself up, not dissimilar to the way a cat stretches their back. "Okay, thanks for letting me nap."

"No problem. I had a mini-nap as well."

"Was it productive?"

I shrug. "Eh, like I said, it was a mini-nap."

"Okay. Well, what do you want to do now?"

"Choices?"

"NYU, bridges, Chinatown, Little Italy..." she rattles off locations.

"Let's go NYU since you've got that coffee thing anyways. And you can show me around the place," I suggest.

"Cool." She sits up, fully. "Actually I'm gonna go take a shower, so I'll be back."

"You look fine?"

"My hair is all flat." She prides herself in having rather spiky hair that naturally stands up, which gives her about 2-3 inches of extra height.

"It looks fine?"

"No, seeee?" She runs her hand through the side of her head. "It's all flat."

I frown. "I still don't see it."

"It's fine. I'll be back."

"Ohhkay..."

She returns with damp hair, about five minutes later. "There, see? It's less, not poufy now."

"Okay."

"Well, I guess I should, or could, also say it's more poufy now."

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Okay, you ready to go now?"

"Sure," I stand up and stretch, lamenting my tight shoulders, as I've started doing after stopping aerial yoga.

"Let's go..." she opens the door to her room, and we head out, with her leading the way.

We walk for a bit, before she requests, "can you, like, walk next to me instead? So that, like, I can, like, make sure you're, like, following me."

I raise an eyebrow, "I'm trying..." I murmur. It's not that easy to walk next to someone when you don't know where you're going, and they don't give you directions either.

We approach the business school. "Do you want to go in?" She asks, gesturing to the school. "I've heard it's really nice. I've never explored there before."

"Sure."

We head up the stairs and across the mini-plaza, and after going through the revolving doors, she tries to sneak me in with her pass. The building's security guard is on the phone, but he makes a "hey, that's not allowed!" gesture anyways.

"She's my sister," Sis loud-whispers, and he makes an "okay, fine," sign, so we go ahead. "It's soooo fancy here," she babbles as we go through the building, floor by floor.

"Yeah, it's quite nice," I agree.

"It's so not fair, though. I mean, the business school gets all the nice stuff," she complains. "At Gallatin, ours is just, eh."

"Well, it is the business school," I point out, peeking through a window to a classroom.

"Yeah, and their alums have a lot of money," she adds.

I nod. "Yeah, I mean, they're donating whole classrooms to this place," I read the plaques next to the classrooms, "Donated by So and So..."

"Yeah, see? It's not fair."

"Well, they're going to want to support the school they went to..."

We continue the conversation as we head out and go to the library, where she gives me a mini tour of the place. "See all those gold 'walls'?" She makes air quotes around the last word, dropping her voice to a whisper. "They had to construct it because," she switches to Cantonese, "yow yun teew loh lay zee sah.*"

I gasp. "Noo, it's that crazy here?"

She nods, "yep."

We walk around the lobby for a bit, and fill out a survey to get a free tote bag, before she takes me up to the tenth floor.

"Is that food, there?" She points to an abandoned room a few floors down, across from us.

"Where?"

"There. With the red carpet. You want to go get free food?"

"It's probably for some special event," I rationalize.

"Yeah, true, but let's check it out anyways."

"Ohh kayy..." I follow her down the stairs to level six, where the room is, indeed, reserved for a special occasion.

"Oh well, I just wanted to show you it, because the view here is so amazing. But since they're being so exclusive, I guess not," she half-huffed.

We pass by the door leading in from the hallway. "I wonder if it's locked," I whisper, reaching out to give the door a test push. I gasp and retract my hand.

Sis stops and gasps as well. "Go, go, go," she eggs on. "You already opened it. Just go in and take a picture and come back out," she giggles.

I follow her instructions and she follows me in.

"Isn't the view, like, amazing? Like, there's the Empire State Building, and that's a center, or maybe it's something else..."

"Okay, just tell me when we're back out, okay? I'm done with the pictures, let's go!" I leg it out of the room, and sis follows.

"Oh my gosh, I'm deeeeaaad," she gasps. "I couldn't believe it was actually open, and you went in."

"Well, it said 'push,' and I wondered if it was open, so I pushed," I laugh, as we make our way back down to the lobby.

"Yeah I was wondering that, too, but-"

"Eh, you'll probably never be allowed to have visitors under your name, ever again," I joke. "You're very welcome."

"Thank you, sister."

We make our way out of the building, giggling and unscathed.