Published: September 15, 2009 03:52 pm      

MISTY: Hey, birthday girl, why don’t you lose some weight?

Walking a dangerous line with a birthday gift.

Is paying your sister’s entry fee for the 500 Festival Mini Marathon for her birthday like a husband buying his wife an iron for Christmas?

My sister’s birthday is this month and that’s what I really want to get her, but I have concerns.

Will it come across as Happy Birthday, Fatty?

But after 31 years of torment from my older sister, is that really such a bad thing?

I’ve pretty much talked her into doing the Mini Marathon with me next year, but she’s still on the edge. She winced at the cost (and the thought of walking 13.1 feet, much less 13.1 miles), so I thought I’d pay her entry fee. The 13.1 miles I can do nothing about.

Having put on a few pounds since getting married and having two kids, she’s been wanting to lose weight. When I did the Fitness Challenge, she really started talking a lot about it.

Then I did the Mini, and she said that might be cool to do ... someday.

I said, why not now. She said, because she’s fat.

I offered that training for the Mini might help with that, and she said she’d think about it.

So far, that’s what she’s done: Thought about it.

She started walking a little bit, but then quickly found two excuses under the age of 4, and that was that. But I know she really wants to get active and lose weight, and I think this will motivate her.

I can’t help but think back several Christmases ago, when her and now husband were recently engaged and he bought her a practical gift, thinking that’s what she wanted.

She unwrapped the package, and said, “Oh look, a knife set,” in the most sarcastic voice possible.

A note about Knisely family Christmas: It’s long-standing tradition to wrap things in unusual boxes, which is what my sister thought was happening here. No such luck. A certain soon-to-be sister-in-law probably should have warned him about said tradition.

Turns out it really was a knife set.

That story is retold every year at Christmas without fail.

I don’t want that to be me.

Hey, everybody, remember the time Misty told me I was fat?

• Misty Knisely is the Kokomo Tribune city editor. She can be reached at misty.knisely@kokomotribune.com