I am, in fact, the A

Reddit is the preferred venue for crowdsourcing feedback on one's questionable choices in the popular "Am I The Asshole?" threads. I haven't participated because most of the time I'm keenly aware of my asshole activities, though the coworker who sent out the brand guide this week and received my immediate response flagging the typos in it may beg to differ.  

When I was in college, I went to Connecticut to get my very first tattoo -- Max in his Wolf Suit making mischief of one kind and another from Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Not long afterwards I was introduced to a fellow student who hissed at me when he heard my name, because he also had a Max tattoo, and in fact - had it before I did. While my love of Max is lifelong and legendary, and I do not remember knowing about the student or his tattoo before I crossed state lines to get inked that first time,  I *had* to have heard about it. I was an inadvertent copycat, and he was right to hiss at me. While Max has long been covered up with a more ornate knitted heart and knitting needles, I still feel him under there, whispering "yeah, you're the asshole." 

Back in the dawn of meeting people online I built a mutual fascination with a fella from North Carolina, but when it came time for him to visit me in Los Angeles, I got pissed about something and refused to pick him up at the airport when he arrived. He ended up getting a hotel room for the night and flying back home the next day with no visit. It was flat out thoughtless of me, and though I have no memory of what set me off, I was absolutely the asshole. 

There's not enough space on the internet for me to go through all the examples of my assholery, and who wants to ruin a Sunday morning with that anyways? But I am livid at my dead sister Martha, and I fear that - once again - I am the asshole.

My siblings and I have a shared address book on Google which contains, obviously, our addresses, but also has columns for such important trivia as 'favorite dessert' and 'what you want done with your expired corpse.' For as long as that category has existed, mine has read
    "Cremated and tossed off the inside of the covered bridge at Fallasburg. (Preferably by Jim)."

That's right down the hill from where my paternal grandparents lived in Lowell, MI, and one of my favorite activities when I was little was to climb up inside the covered bridge and spit, because I loved to watch the way it went straight down until the air coming under the bridge hit it and my spit took a magical mid-air turn. Sweet memories, good times. 

So please imagine my dismay when I received video recently of that very same little brother Jim pouring my sister Martha's ashes into that very same river by that very same covered bridge. 

What the hell, Martha?! Why you gotta steal my spot?!?

I know, I know, the river's big enough for both of us, and any trace of her will be long gone by the time my cremains are ready to be dumped. Getting that coveted spot was a consolation prize for dying first, I guess? It's just.....when you're the poster child for Ninth Child Syndrome, you want to be UNIQUE, dammit. Special. Not just part of the litter. Now I have to find a new meaningful, cool spot for my crumbs, and have to update the damn family address book again. And spend my Sunday feeling like an asshole for being mad at my dead sister. 

Whatever. All we are is dust in the wind, dirt in the ground. The deeds we do live after us, the good is oft interred in our bones. So let it be with Martha, even if she was a spot-stealer.