Jeanne Robertson | Don't Forget Your Sister's Birthday

people ask me often about my family and their what they really want to know is is everybody in your family dull my sisters were 5 feet 5 inches tall mother 5 feet 5 inches tall we don't ask any questions we just let it all go and my sister Catherine and I were close in ages and we have a combative part of our relationship we love each other you know I love you Catherine I do love you but we probably need to work on our bonding and the reason we have this is we shared a bedroom growing up and what this mean is if you came down the hall in our little house and got to the end and turned to the left in our bedroom there was a big piece of masking tape right across the center of that door and if you were a friend of mine or me you turn this way and you came in and you had a little bit in that room but if you were a friend of Catherine's you came down and you'd automatically turned in this way sometimes my friends would be on my bed staring at her friends like waiting I want a dare step across that night and when we were growing up she had on a spiral notebook and she said they were the official rules of hopscotch I said let me see them no they're my book of hopscotch from the box could only be so many inches by so many inches and that meant smaller than my foot so if I hopped I was out of the game so do you understand why we had a little bit of a rivalry but we do love each other but we need to work on our bonding and I'm so glad you're here well one day I was sitting at my phone early in the morning I had come in from a trip and the phone rang and she has a mind like a steel trap once something goes in it it goes back and closes and you never know you can just see it opening uh-oh here it comes she's gonna pull something up from 40 years ago watch out there it go and so as we're sitting there the phone rang and I picked it up and Catherine said I'm in on me in and out all day today when you're gonna come on down here with my birthday prison I had totally forgotten her birthday and it was a big birthday it was what we call in our family an ugly zero birthday I believe it was Andy Taylor in the greatest television show that's ever been produced The Andy Griffith Show who said oh of course quoting someone else what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive I said Katherine I got your gift right here in my lap I'm wrapping it up right now I was wondering though if you would like to go with me to hear me speak at a banquet tonight I'm speaking at the Habitat for Humanity banquet here in town there was a long pause I thought she'd hung up she said right from North Carolina with a two-year-old the California is something I would consider but hearing you give a speech on my birthday another one of your speeches no you just come on down here with my present I put on some coffee and I hung it up and I started looking around my office for something I could give her just anything that you know when you speak you get a lot of nice things trays trophies Oh a calculator things that they always have on there something like Alabama plumbers it's a national funeral directory Association and I didn't see anything that would jump off and say I'm not monogrammed Katherine would love me and then it don't owe me I had the perfect thing didn't even have to leave the house I would give Katherine one of her big dinner plates in her good China not her everyday China not that stuff you got at the grocery store when you went forty-nine thousand weeks in a row this was the good China and I had a plate of her China because we all have the same china patterns all three dollars this was mother's idea all three of you should have the same china pattern so if you want to have a formal sit-down dinner party for 36 people in your home the tables will be gorgeous and then of course mothered realized now if I got 36 people in my house there is a catering barbecue truck in the driveway stacked a paper plates right there where they're throwing that barbecue down so I got the plate out and I thought this is perfect how smart of me to remember that and just when I looked at the plate Oh a pain of consciousness hit me and I thought I can't do this this is a big birthday this is just a plate I can say this for another year I need to give her something much much bigger because of the cashmere sweater incident one time in high school when we were in high school she left early and was supposed to take me to school but she didn't take me and I had to walk so before I walked I walked down that hall went into my bedroom stood on my side and deliberately stepped to her side got out her only cashmere sweater put it on and wore it to high school all day I am much bigger I spent the day tugging at her cashmere sweater and to this day we can be together at Christmas and that little steel-trap minor her starts opening up and she'll say I didn't have a thing to wear today you know my cashmere sweater steel stretched all out of shape and it's been 50 years since there's Hazzard so I put the sweater on and I wore it and so standing there with it I thought this this is not good enough and in front of my eyes was my solution I would give her the big dinner platter in my good China now let me just ask the women in here what would the good dinner platter have cost all those years ago $100 easily $100 and by net be worth $200 I know so here I was gonna give her my good platter for $200 but it didn't have a choice I had to get down there and then it bothered me so I looked at the platter and it was huge and I took it and I did it across my backside to get the dust off and I put put the platter in this brown paper sack and put this one on top and found an old yellow Christmas Pro who snapped it on there and got in there and got in the car and was riding down the interstate going to Gramm seven miles with the three hundred dollar platter sitting on the seat next to me and then it dawned on me what am i doing what am i doing I'm hyperventilating I can't let her have my three hundred dollar platter I pulled off because I remembered the baby chipmunk incident when I was just a little girl I saw him in the yard one day and they're fast and they got those stripes and little tails stick up here they're cute you can even name one of them Alvin give them a couple of backup chips and they can see increase - Timon y'all don't know that one how about I got friends in low place but let me just tell you something chipmunks are rodents I don't care what you do how you dress them up put them in movies they're rodents but that day running around in the yard I said Catherine I'm gonna catch a chipmunk and it was those sisters he'd you could just see her thinking and she kind of shifted her weight even it like seven eight and said to me you can't have a catch him but if you want to see them they swim around in the toilet bowl at night they when it's hot they can hold their breath and they come up to pipes into the toilet their mother can't come she's too big they just come by themself and after they swim around awhile and they're cool they hold their breath and they swim and go back down again I said no oh if you don't believe me you're going down one night in the dark and sit down you'll find out later I said Catherine you told me that and she said I remember telling you but did not tell you it wasn't true I said no you never told me it wasn't true for two weeks I was terrified to go in there and then one night I had dead he got that a convention a yardstick had tracked her and supply company written on it and I was over here trying to lift the lid to see if they were in there two weeks I had done this then mama came up and said what are you doing and I said I'm looking to see if there's any baby chipmunks in the toilet she turned right around and said Catherine so I'm sitting here on the side of the road and I don't want to give her the platter and then it dawns on me I don't have a choice I had lied I had told her I had a gift I had to get down there with something so I pulled back on the interstate with my four hundred dollar flag and went to Graham and when Oh God the car she's waiting at the door and I went up my said here I'm gonna give you this now I want to get one thing straight Catherine I put more money in your gift this year but it's a big gift and I I wanted something you wanted and I think you can pass it on down to your dollars and you know we have a new star in the state of North Carolina y'all know who he is he's from garner North Carolina who is he Scotty McCreery and one of the songs he sang in the American Idol competition was go go go that's the way I felt I gave her that gift and walked out of there gone gone gone wasn't a $500 platter she went around and she sat down and I got a cup of coffee and I heard her rip the bag and the first and the only thing she really said when I was in the kitchen was how many times have you used this yellow boat and I said doesn't matter it's what's inside that counts and when I came around the corner to her den she had the platter in her lap and she looked up at me and I'll tell you what if you've ever sprung for something that you think's big and you don't know whether you ought to do it or not when I saw the expression in her face I knew I had done the right thing she said where did you get this our pattern is discontinued don't be worried about that folks I looked her right back in the face and said eBay she said I bet you had to pay a lot I did have to pay a lot Katherine but I love you and I don't want to do something special for you and right at that time I saw that little smile the same little smile I saw when she said if you want to see the baby chipmunk she smiling she said that's interesting you might as well pull another one of my sweaters over a baby elephant what she flipped that big platter over and pointed to a piece of masking tape with the name on it and said this is my platter you you

Channel: JeanneRobertson

Views: 737,434

Rating: 4.8600397 out of 5

Keywords: comedy, humor, clean comedy, christian comedy, birthdays, Jeanne Robertson, southern humor

Id: 5Y09nv3fI8U

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 17 2018