Tinsel stars

The trigger for this story is Margaret Attwood’s The Blind Assassin. My writing mate took an entirely different perspective writing about a child with cancer who liked crafts. She used the stickers in place of ribbons in her hair. The line is "She had a packet of tinsel starts, gold and silver, which she would stick onto things we'd done.

She had a packet of tinsel stars, gold and silver, which she would stick onto things we’d done.

I suppose Louann got the idea from nursery school where good papers would earn a sticker and when we were really good, Miss Weagle would put a sticker on our forehead.

I seldom got a sticker, but she did almost every day. Louanne was my twin sister. Naturally we were fraternal twins me being male and all.

Twins are supposed to have some special connection, but not Louann and me. Or maybe that’s just identical twins.

We do look alike. We could be in a commercial for spaghetti or a poster children for a holiday in Italy.

I guess we were more ying and yang, black and white despite our bodily packaging. Louann is an earth mother and me, well my girlfriend Madison thinks I have commitment issues just because I don’t want to set a wedding date.

Louann agrees with Madison which is difficult because my sister and I work together in the family dry cleaning business now that Pop is too old. I do the cleaning and pressing, she serves customers and does the books.

I get the financial statements with those stupid tinsel stickers when we have a good month. In fact, when I see those damned gold or silver sparkly things, I don’t bother to check the figures. When one is missing, it’s usually the month that we laid in extra supplies or bought a new piece of equipment.

It’s good that she does the client thing, because she’s good with people. I would rather deal with the machinery any day of the week—in fact that’s what I do every day of the week.

Business isn’t as good as when Pop ran the business despite all of Louann’s additions to the shop such as the coffee machine, which I still think is a stupid expense. People can go to Mildred’s next door for coffee. And the neighborhood announcement board, well, that’s pretty silly too.

I let her have her way just because it is easier than arguing. But I still would like to hide those God damned stars.