I saw my sister in the gym tonight.  Actually, I bumped into a trainer just outside the gym who told me my sister was working out.  I looked shocked; the trainer then looked puzzled.  You see, my sister has a stress fracture in her foot and should not be on an elliptical machine (and that is all she does at the gym when I am not around to coach her about weights).  I march upstairs in my “street clothes” to confront my sister.  I go to the heart of the matter and ask her whether she did, in fact, get her medical degree through a correspondence course with an off-shore medical school. In our family, that is the sum total of trash-talking.

After having laid down the gauntlet, my sister sputters some rationalizations, all of which I reject in an imperious way (after all I am a doctor, too — ok, a juris doctor).  I give her THE LOOK (Mom’s look of disappointment).  She doesn’t flinch.  She is not my sister.  My sister would have flinched.  I am confronted by the realization that my sister’s body is inhabited by an alien who is not scared of THE LOOK. THE LOOK proves the old adage, “if looks could kill . . . ” Well, not exactly, but THE LOOK with the eyes of my mother can really make a person plead for forgiveness. No sign of recognition by the alien inhabiting my sister.

Still, she knows about “our” Dad’s procedure tomorrow.  Clever aliens, these pod people.

So, I test this alien with other facts that my sister should know.  I mention some things I had written in my blog.  She is a little hazy about some of my latest entries.  But she does zero in on some with incredible accuracy.  I am not convinced yet but I leave to regroup and give the alien a false sense that she fooled the sister of her host body.  I come back up and flash an old picture of my parents and my sister at camp visiting day, circa 1969.  The alien looks at the picture, sighs and hugs me.

Maybe my sister is inhabited by an alien, but it is a really endearing alien.  Maybe the alien can heal her stress fracture.  Maybe the alien can help with my sagging neck.  After all, aliens have special powers that can conquer humanity, or at least that is true in the movies.