An Ode to My Best Friend(s)
January 1, 2015
I feel like I’ve experienced the world with my best friends by my side. In fact, with some of them, I have and it’s a rewarding experience. Some people have one or two best friends, or some people have up to ten, like I do.
I can write page upon page about each and every memory I’ve ever had with them and it would end up being the biggest, most gnarly book of short stories out there. And I know it’s hard to describe a relationship like that, to feel really comfortable with a person/people, to relive every embarrassing “remember when”, or to look at each other and know exactly what the other one (or two, or ten) is thinking. But it’s kind of neat having that sort of secret experience that no one else will truly understand.
So to commemorate best friendships, I am going to list a couple of my favorite moments I’ve had with my best friends, and maybe in turn, you’ll think of every glorious moment you’ve had with your best pal. Here goes nothing:
I come from a land down plunger
1. A couple of years ago, I went on a RV (made for eight people) trip with ten other people (three of which were my best friends) to Seattle with several stops in between. As we were departing from one of those stops, Reno I think, we needed to pack ourselves up from the trailer park which involves unscrewing these loose pipes from the ground (in English, a sewage system type deal). Now since the adults on the RV were complaining that the younger generation wasn’t doing anything, we were guilted and then eventually forced (ugh, am I right?) to unscrew those disgusting tubes of pure filth. Now, you can get them rinsed at best, which is what I was trying to do before my vertically challenged friend, Ashley, decided to rip that bad boy right off the cleaning dock. The dirty water ricocheted off the tube, directly onto yours truly. It was horrifying, and surprisingly refreshing on that hot summer’s day. Anyway, I hear about that experience at least once every six months, either praised for my bravery for going right on with completing my mission or shunned by the fact my face had been caressed by Satan’s liquid form.
Sink or swim
2. While I was in Seattle, it was a brisk 50 degrees. Our group occupied two houses overseeing a lake. While we were overseeing said lake, my friend, Ashley (aforementioned as vertically challenged) as, and I decided to make a friendly wager. Whoever could swim the farthest/stay in the water the longest won. What the prize was, I can’t quite remember, but I really hope it was worth swimming in that lake. Anyway, the cold water isn’t what we were dreading (alright, maybe a little). It was the hundreds of jellyfish that infested the lake. You could swim several feet and have already met maybe seven jellyfish. You might be asking yourself, wow, was it really worth it to swim in a frigid, jellyfish-infested lake if she can’t even remember the freaking prize? The answer to your question is yes, it was worth it because I wasn’t stung and neither was my friend, Ashley, because both of decided to call it quits because we were quite good at dodging these freshwater demons and were immune to the cold water as we are both cold-blooded humans. Although I doubt either of us actually won anything, it was really rewarding to see that her bumbling brother, Sean, had gotten stung, even though he wasn’t in on the bet, nor was he competing for a prize.
If you can bodge a wrench, you can bodge a ball.
3. If you can believe it, I used to have a way with words in the eighth grade. But not anymore, it died a long time ago with my prepubescent self where it should stay buried forever until the end of time. Anyhoo, moving on. So that year was actually the year I met Jordan Bradley, the only best friend I currently have in school. We had gym together and it was the day that we would play dodge ball, I think it was once a fortnight (my way with words strikes again!). And as I was talking to Jordan, I had said “bodge ball.” It wasn’t a huge deal, so like the totally smooth person I am, I tried to play it off so she would get distracted and move on from it. Nope, she definitely heard (with her supersonic bat hearing) and has reminded me of this moment after all these years. Thanks, Jordan.
Trolling
4. So she would never tell someone about this, but Jordan has this really amazing hidden talent that she doesn’t like to show anyone. She can run like a troll creature. It’s pretty mystifying how accurate it is, and I will try to describe in great detail exactly how mystifying it can be. Now let’s get a couple things straight, I’m not talking about giant trolls, like the ones Bilbo Baggins had to fight, I’m talking about the gangling kind. Also it’s not that I am constantly thinking about the way trolls run (isn’t there a pickup line of some sort with running and minds involved – oh well), it’s just that when I saw her arms positioned straight diagonally behind her and jogging without locking her knees, it had the most uncanny resemblance to a troll. In fact, one of her teachers, Mr. Eschler, actually got to witness this supernatural event and told her that she ran like a troll. And these were two separate experiences, so neither me nor Mr. Eschler knew that the other had the same opinion on Jordan’s metaphysical abilities. It’s just one of those magical phenomenons that happen once on a blue moon (so, never). And if you are lucky enough to see it (I’ve only seen it about three times in the five years I’ve known her), be prepared to be mesmerized and given a somewhat surprising amount of catharsis.
My sticky situation
5. A long while ago, before I met Jordan, I was visiting a couple buddies in College Station and we decided to go out for some late night ice cream. So our gang packed up and hit the road, ordered our ice cream and had couple licks before heading back to our cars. Now that is when some bridges were seriously burned. I mean, I don’t know who threw the first ice cream, but it definitely was not me. It was everywhere; on our cars, in our hair, in our nooks and crannies. It was a beautiful, albeit delicious, mess. By the end of that war, there was not one of us who left that parking lot un[[creamed]]. We ride together, we die together, we eat ice cream badly together. That phrase goes something like that, I can never remember.
Ripping a new one
6. One time, Jordan and I were talking by a railing upstairs that had a poster stuck to it. So in our 8th grade rebellious state, we decided to tear pieces of it off the corners. No reason, we were just bored and we thought we were really, really, ridiculously cool. We kept on going until fellow senior Hiba Khan walked by downstairs, and we yelled, “Hey Hiba, look at what we did!” whilst waving fragments of it in front of our smiling faces, while she remained calm, yet subtly bewildered. She did get a good look before taking a moment to tell us that she actually made that specific poster that we had just totally desecrated. Approximately a second after she said that, we split, guffawing our way down the hall with adrenaline and mostly embarrassment.
I guess what I’m trying to say with all these stories is that every friendship is unique, and every best friendship is, well, even more unique. All of my best friends are spread out on all ends of the spectrum. To give you a fairly accurate example, we’re kind of like the Spice Girls (I’m Posh, of course). Anyway, I love them heaps, whether we’re singing loudly to Taylor Swift’s new album (by the way, you should check out Jordan’s review on it) or going head-to-head via Nerf gun war in a nearby cul-de-sac. My best friends keep me grounded, they make me happy when I’m sad, and they make the fun times, well, even more fun.