When I was 16, I stole a car.
That’s one memory that comes flooding back whenever I hear Little Sister by Queens Of The Stone Age.
To be fair, I did have two other accomplices, so I can’t shoulder ALL the blame. But, before we get into seedy tales of grand theft auto, let’s start at the beginning.
When I was 12, my family settled in southern Alberta. It was there that I reconnected with two twin cousins my age. The bond we would form over the next six years would be unshakable. When our parents got together weekend after weekend, so did we. The three of us would spend hours together, talking, laughing and sharing our lives. Whether we were sitting in a bedroom bitching about how unfair things were, or we were out in the mean streets of Vauxhall spying on boys or causing trouble, we were a single unit: we couldn’t imagine life without each other. We were best friends.
One night, after one of my cousins had a particularly messy break up with her boyfriend, I convinced my parents to let me have a sleep over with my best gal pals. So, late that night, sitting in my cousins’ basement bedroom covered with posters on every wall and the ceiling (which I thought was totally kick ass), one of them casually stated: “Let’s take the car for a spin.”
My cousins lived on an acreage just outside of Enchant, so taking the car for a spin was actually just code for “let’s drive down this rural road until we get bored”, which we totally did. But, the journey we went through to pull it off is far more interesting.
I mentioned that my cousins’ bedroom was in the basement; this fact may seem completely unsurprising and incredibly dull, until you throw this fun little fact into the mix: I have cerebral palsy with no ability to walk. I am a full-time wheelchair user. But for six years, those rock star women included me in EVERYTHING, wheelchair be damned!
So, basement bedroom? No problem. I can’t tell you the number of times they plucked me from the wheelchair, with one person supporting my upper body and the other supporting my legs, carrying me up and down what had to be AT LEAST 20 stairs. They were both petite in stature, and even though I was only 90 pounds it still amazes me that they were able to do this, and that they truly WANTED to do this. Looking back now, they did it out of pure love, and I was so, so lucky.
Back to that fateful night: it was about 2 a.m., and the rest of my relatives were sound asleep. If we had a chance in hell of getting away with this, we were going to have to be stealthy and silent (I guess as silent as you can be when three people are forming a human chain up steep basement stairs). Nevertheless, we got to the top. Step 1 complete!
Step 2: Quietly open the door leading from the house to the garage (all while still keeping the human chain intact) and carry me down three more stairs to the garage.
Step 3: Get me into the car.
Step 4: Manually open the garage door and push the car out to avoid additional noise and the high probability of getting busted.
Step 5: Manually close the garage door and get into the car.
We were ready! One of my cousins sat in the back, while I sat in the passenger seat and my other cousin took the drivers’ side. She slid the key into the ignition, and the car roared to life. Out in the middle of nowhere on that silent, starry night, I was sure that the sound of the engine could be heard inside, and we were just moments away from being found out and meeting our doom. But no one came, and the universe looked kindly upon three idiots that night.
We excitedly pulled out of the gravel driveway and began our trek to nowhere in particular. We laughed, screamed and high fived each other for our ingenuity, armed with the illusion of teenage invincibility.
I turned the radio to Rock 106 and heard the song we had been jamming to all summer. The song that heard a brother cry for his little sister to give up her rebellious ways. I loved it, but hearing it here, on this particular occasion made it all the more awesome.
Little sister, can’t you find another way? No more living life behind the shadows.
We all rejoiced in the song as we drove, knowing full well that the three of us were all “Little Sister” with our act of defiance.
We made it as far as the end of the road before we chickened out and decided to turn around (my cousin being almost too short to peer over the steering wheel had a lot to do with it).
So, we made our way back, pulled into the driveway, completing all the same steps in reverse: manually open the garage, push the car in, manually close the garage, get girl with CP out of the car, form human chain to go carry girl up garage stairs, open squeaky door to the house, continue human chain to carry girl down steep basement stairs, collapse into bed.
How no one heard us that night, I will never understand. But what I do understand is the deep and lasting memory that surfaces every time I hear that song. It’s not just the memory of adolescent rebellion and a night time joyride; it’s the memory of the love my cousins shared for me and their strong desire to see me included, no matter how difficult the task.
They were the REAL Queens Of The Stone Age.