Being a single child again!

since i was 1 and a half years old, i have never stayed at home with my parents as a single child. i have always had two bratty younger sisters wanting to copy everything i did. when i went to school, my second sister decided that she wanted to go as well, when i got a new dress, another sister wanted one just like that, when i got to go out with my friends, they wanted to go out with theirs! my mother often told me that it was flattering that they wanted to do all i did, but somehow i was smart enough never to have bought that story! wherever i looked, i always saw something that reminded me that they were there! we spent all our time playing together and keeping each other company, but let there be no illusion that the games were "fight-free". over the years, my mother learnt to turn a deaf ear to the screaming at shouting at one another. she knew that she had to be worried only if she did not hear from us for more than a few minutes cos then u could be sure that we were upto some mischief.
every time my "only child friends" told me about that huge cadbury bar they ate themselves, or the tv show they watched (which i couldnt cos my sister got to the tv first) i listened with envy and often wondered what it would be like to live alone at home.
i never really had that opportunity till a couple of days back when my sisters had to go to chennai for a few days and left me with my parents to fulfill me life long desire to be the only child.... over night things changed. i could choose what amma should make for tea, (usually, all three of us want different things and amma makes us compromise), i dint have to shout - "i book the tv at 9 pm", i dint have to book to have bath in the best bathroom, i dint have to wait till my sister took annoyingly long on the computer, i dint have to fight to lick the cake batter off the dish, i dint have to divide the portion of prawns into three and carefully assess which was the biggest portion, i dint have to fight to sit at the window seat in the car, i dint have to push my youngest sister to the edge of the bed and eventually push her out, i dint have to drink apple juice just because it was another sister's turn to choose the flavour of tropicana that we bought, i dint have to wait endlessly for the phone till my sister's million boyfriends were done talking to her.......... ah.... this is life....
or so i thought.....
to my utter dismay, being the only child was not seventh heaven... i was bored after the first one hour of being awake, i found it was boring to play the guitar and sing without the bratty duo to sing parts for the song, i found no satisfaction in sitting at the window seat in the car without winning the fight and similarly found that parents showering all their attention on you is not a good thing! there was nothing on tv that i could watch without passing the usual comments on everything and everyone and "bold and the beautiful" was no longer fun unless i watched it with either one of my witty siblings! over a period of 24 hours i went from envying only children to complete sympathy towards them for losing out on the best parts of life! having siblings, fighting with them and learning to put up with them!
guess they are what u call "necessary evils"!!!!