Growing up, we always had this rule. I guess someone at one point told us that, “The smallest needs to be in the middle,” cause we have abided by that rule all our lives. The smallest (always the youngest) had to ride the middle of the backseat, instead of getting a window seat. The smallest had to ride in the middle of the frontseat with the gear shift in the way. The smallest had to sleep in the middle of the big bed. I don’t know why this was so important – I can see why a 3 yr old should ride in the middle, but a 10 yr old?
Anyway. As the eldest of all my cousins, I held this rule dear to my heart. If one of my younger cousins got the last window seat, I could always say, “SMALLEST IN THE MIDDLE!” There was a downside to being one of the non-small people tho – sometimes there would be TOO many, and the said smallest would have to ride in someone’s lap. I could generally get out of this by telling the smallest to ride in their sister’s lap, not mine.
Well, I guess all that throwing my weight around when I was younger is now coming back in my face. Just because I’m the oldest doesn’t mean I’m the biggest anymore. No… now *I* am the smallest. It’s so pathetic. Now I have to use the old, “I called it” routine to fight it. I came to this realisation when on our Orlando trip, *I* was the one who had to ride in my mother’s lap
I hate being the smallest. I feel sorry for all those times I did that to my youngest cousin, now.