Missed Holidays & Odd Beginnings

Through some of the many notifications I get on my phone about national holidays and international holidays and the greeting cards I should send for all of them, I missed National Friendship Day on August 7^th.  This could be one of those holidays contrived to sell greeting cards, since the reminder for the holiday asked me if I wanted to send a card, but I want to believe that is a genuine holiday designed to show gratitude to those special relationships in your life.   I wish I could write a sonnet for every friend that had touched my life and the impact that they made, but poetry was never my strong suit.  I will however share some antidotes as to how some of my best friendships started.   Just to keep it fun, see if you can guess which anecdote goes to which friend. 

The friends in question are: Barbie, Lizzy, GAT, Faye, Steph & Nic.

1.       They say that you are either going to love the person that sits next to you at work or you are going to become arch enemies.  After weeks of silent treatment, hairy eyeballs and suspicions of bird harboring in desk drawers, negotiations were finally made.  I tried to go for arch enemies and then Stockholm Syndrome set in.   

2.       The tinkling of bells rang in the air with every step she took quite literally. The best interviews are the ones that are done in Halloween costume, because you can tell right away when someone is nervous.

3.       And I said to her, “You will know my house by the snow bunny in the front yard.” After a moment of silence, she said, “What’s a snow bunny?”

4.       I was standing behind the registers watching the crowd for the midnight release, when she stops in front of me and hands me a bottle of drugs.  I wasn’t even sure if I had met her before that moment.

5.       “Let’s put this sweater over our heads and we can pretend we are fairies in a cave.” 

6.       I was walking down the mall when someone from inside one of the stores I was passing yelled, “FRESHMAN!” I turned and responded with, “I’m not a freshman.”  She just smirked at me and said, “You’ll always be a freshman to me.”

Please keep in mind that there is more to most of these stories than these few sentences.  The drugs weren’t the illegal kind, but more of the pain relief sort.   For those that are wondering who lined up with what story, here are the answers:  1=Nic, 2= Lizzy, 3= GAT, 4=Barbie, 5=Faye, 6= Steph.   It just proves that friendship starts in the most unlikely ways.  Happy Belated Friendship Appreciation Day!