The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantalones

  Hola'. There, now I have used up 2 of the 14 Spanish words I know. I am ashamed to live in California and not speak Spanish. But I took four years of Latin, and hand me some Ovid and I'm your girl. Not really, I only know one phrase in Latin, but it's a useful one: "Semper ubi sub ubi." Translation: "Always wear underwear." Good advice, the kind of advice a big sister might have given me in second grade before I launched myself on the monkey bars. Sisters are supposed to be good at that kind of thing, but here's the rub: I never had a sister. I had three brothers, so I spent a fair amount of time faking injuries and watching them get punished. Perhaps this is why I like the movie Reservoir Dogs so much. So much blood.

  But you don't need blood ties for a sister (and you don't need dorky make-believe traveling pants that fit all four friends even before America Ferrera lost all that weight and got Ugly Betty cancelled.) One of my brothers married the Duchess of Fort Bragg, and she is a master thrift shopper. Here is a belt she bought recently (the top and jeans are also thrift):

  Here's one thing I know for sure. If I had a sister, and she shopped with me at Goodwill, she NEVER would have let me buy this little wench number. My sister would have had a cool name like Laramie or Patti Smith, and she would have seen this number and laughed a throaty laugh and said, "Who do you think you ARE buying that thing? An Empress of a Second-Rate Renaissance Faire? A waitress at Gulliver's? A puppet in a It's a Small World ride? Stop embarrassing me and  put all that dachshund crap down before we get to the register. Ahhhhh, sisterhood.