Street Fighting Skillz for Girlz

This is my big sister, Jo Ann. This picture was taken sometime in the 80s. Like you can't tell. Jo Ann will tell you that her name is Jonni, and technically she did have it legally changed when she was an adult.

Yeah, whatever. No one else in our immediate family will refer to Jo Ann by her soap opera name, but all of her friends don't know her by anything else. Honestly, I can't even say her soap opera name without giggling, but that's beside the point.

The point of this post is that I learned my street fighting skills from my big sis. She's one big bad a*@. This is a family blog, so I just can't bring myself to spell it out. Plus my Mama Llama reads it and she would frown upon such language.

Anyway, Jo Ann has a bad temper and when she was a teenager, she had a real bad attitude to go with it. She's not the least bit concerned about exercising restraint either. Tick her off, be prepared to pay. It's that simple. Growing up, everyone was afraid of her. I think even my Mama Llama was afraid of her.

Everyone was afraid of Jo Ann not just because of her temper, but because she would regularly kick the butts of the bully boys in our neighborhood. We had some nasty boys in our neighborhood too, so there was lots of butt kicking to be done.

One time I was climbing the fence in our backyard and the nastiest boy in the neighborhood, Robbie, pulled my pants down. Thankfully Jo Ann was there. She smacked him to the ground and started beating the crap out of him. I can't even tell you how much my heart swelled with pride.

Robbie was crying and sputtering and she was all "You pervert!" [BAM BAM BAM] "You don't pull my sister's pants down!" [BAM BAM BAM] "You psycho sex maniac! Get out of here and don't come back!" He was all holding his arms up in the air, bleeding and saying "I'm sorry man, I'm sorry. I'll never do it again."

He was so lying though. He was incapable of learning his lesson. That boy was NAY-asty.

Then he hit puberty and he got real big. Thank goodness we moved away from the hood right about that time. I don't even want to know what became of him.

Jo Ann didn't just kick the butts of the nasty boys in the neighborhood. Pickle and I got our butts kicked too, although usually she didn't make us bleed. She was satisfied to stop at making us cry.

I remember one time when we were teenagers, rolling around on the floor, wrestling for the chance to pick the t.v. channel. I wanted to watch Gilligan's Island and she wanted to watch Star Trek. Oh geez, she was the biggest Star Trek freak and I hated Star Trek. Captain Kirk was just so exhausting to watch because it took him 15 minutes to complete a simple sentence. Puh-leeze, not Star Trek again. Jo Ann even went to a Star Trek Convention once, she was that into it. Talk about a Freak Fest. Anyway, we were out for blood and I rolled her over to pin her, and in the process I slammed her head up against the corner of one of the kitchen cabinets.

The next thing I knew she was clutching her head and bleeding all over the place. Head injuries bleed a lot, who knew? I should probably mention that although my sister was tough, she was kind of a whimp when it came to blood and things like having the tangles combed out of her hair. Oh man, she would scream. So she discovered that she was bleeding and she gets even madder, but panicky at the same time. "You bleep, you bleeping made me bleed. You bleep bleep." I was all "Yeah! Score!" But then it registered that now she was going to really make me pay, and I was going to be the one bleeding next. Lucky for me, she had to go to the hospital for stitches so the butt kicking was put on hold. Whew!

I would like to say that I got to enjoy Gilligan's Island and bask in the joy of my victory, but I was too panicked that she was going to KILL ME when she got home. And they were probably going to have to shave part of her head for the stitches, so she was going to be even more ticked off. Yep, I was dead meat.

I had like three hours to obsess over my butt kicking. I called all my friends to get their opinion, and they all said I was going to get my butt kicked too. "Hide. Hide well." they said.

So my mom pulls into the driveway with my sister, and I start running back and forth, trying to find a hiding place, deciding that each one wasn't good enough, then running out to find another one. I was a mess. A big ol' chicken butt mess.

It was all very anticlimactic though, because my sister walked in the door with my mom and she had a headache. She had a headache. Can you believe my luck? I live to fight another day. Yes!

The next day Jo Ann had cooled down considerably, but she still had a reputation to uphold so she was all "I am still going to get you, you bleep."

That's all I remember. I don't recall getting a butt kicking, but maybe it was so traumatic that I just blocked it from my memory.

In the interest of passing on some of my excellent street fighting skills to our girls, we started coaching them young.


In this picture Zoe is three and Annika is one. We were chanting "Get her Annie! Get her!"


All that rolie polie-ness tends to roll right off the target.


That's okay, Annie's still able to connect one.


When Annika turned three and Zoe was five, we started them in Tiny Tiger Karate lessons. We want to make sure that when they go on a date, they can back up their NOs with a little can of whoop a#$.


Here they are bowing in, preparing to give a little demonstration.


Annika is a little like Jo Ann. She's serious about her whoopings. Her favorite part of karate is the kicks. She likes to do them fast and she doesn't know her strength. Or maybe she does.


Zoe is our Delicate Flower and every injury is magnified tenfold on the Pain Meter and its corresponding Attention Seeking Scale.

They look like they're having fun here though, don't they?



Oops. Spoke too soon.

I love Annika's face here. Zoe was all "WAAAAAAAAH!" and Annika looks like she's thinking "Oopsie." In fact, I'm pretty sure she was. She knows what a Drama Llama Zoe is so I think she was just waiting to see if there was going to be any blood to follow up with all that racket. She probably thought blood would have been super cool.

No blood though, just drama.


"WAAAAAAH!"


I love this. They still have to bow out, but can you see that look on Zoe's face? Girlfriend knows how to hold a grudge. She talks through her gritted teeth and I can just hear her, "Anni-KA! You are such a meaner! That wasn't very nice!"

I don't know if we're going to be able to instill some street fighting skillz into Zoe Bug, but I think our work is done with Stinkerbell.