The first notification arrived on my phone while I was standing in the crowded checkout line at a Walmart in Charlotte with a gallon of milk tucked under my arm. My phone was balanced precariously in my free hand as I tried to stop a frozen pizza from sliding through the metal bars of the shopping cart.
“We need to use your apartment for the upcoming weekend,” my sister Tiffany wrote in a message that appeared suddenly on my screen. “Brandon’s parents are coming to visit us, and we decided that you can stay at a nearby hotel while they use your place.”
I stared at the glowing screen for a long moment because I honestly thought that I had somehow misread the words on the first pass. It was not that Tiffany had never made a ridiculous request before, as she had spent most of her adult life turning her own whims into family obligations.
This message was so blunt and stripped of even the fake politeness people usually attach to taking something that does not belong to them that my brain simply refused to process it. She did not ask if they could stay or if I would be okay with the arrangement, nor did she acknowledge that this was an incredibly last minute demand.