Wednesday, February 11, 2009

"I'm not your friend anymore!"

When I was little, the girl next door was my best friend. We still keep in touch, and I will always have good memories of growing up with her. She's the one who conned me into making a fool out myself in front of the entire neighborhood.

However, it wasn't all fluffy clouds and sunshine. Both of us had very STRONG personalities. I don't think a day went by in elementary school that we didn't fight, stomp away from each other and swear we would never be friends again.

One of these times, yelling at her and slamming the door wasn't enough. I knew I had to do something to rub a little salt in the wound. My devious 6-year-old mind worked overtime, and I finally came up with the perfect plan. I'd fool her into thinking I was offering an apology.

I'm sure that the entire time I was plotting, I cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West.



First I got a shoe box and filled it with dirt. I tried to find a bunch of earthworms to put in it as well, but those are hard to find in the desert. Then, I found some nice wrapping paper and wrapped up the box. For the final touch, I wrote a note telling her how sorry I was and asked her to accept the present as a token of my sincerity. I ding dong ditched her and ran back home to gloat in my room with my stuffed animals and Lego sets.

About two hours later, the doorbell rang. On the doormat I found a letter addressed to me. Flipping it over, I noticed the envelope was sealed with chewed bubble gum. Inside, my friend had stuffed a bunch of weeds along with a sarcastic note about how sorry she was.

Another two hours later found us both bored out of our minds and trying to figure out how to talk to the each other and forget the whole incident.

I think one of the only reasons we made it through all that with our friendship intact is because we were pretty much the only ones our age in the neighborhood.

(Tangent)
We were such good friends, that I knew her birthday before I knew anyone’s birthday in my family. It was years before I realized her birthday was also the same day as my parent’s anniversary.
(End Tangent)

2 comments:

JMadd said...

You didn't have earthworms in Burbank? We were crawling with them in Westchester - especially when it rained. Reading this post is right on time because I have a nephew who is almost 6 and he and this little girl in his class get in a fight every day and then make up. It's good to know he's normal.

Dun said...

You were much too creative and precocious as a 6-year old. I don't really remember anything about when I was six. When I was 5 I ate the pudding we were using as finger paint in kindergarten. It's a wonder I made it through college...