The (sad but true) Tale of the STINKY Sweater
In the fourth grade, my friend and I were pretty much inseparable. We clicked immediately. She laughed at my silly jokes and I laughed at hers. She would push my desk clear across the room when the teacher left and I would push her desk across the room when the teacher left the next time.
We got each other.
You have to hand it to the girl for talking to me at all. At that time I'm my life, I resembled a tall chihuahua that wore glasses with a rose etched in one lens and my initials "KDH" in the other. In fact, a boy used to call me "Chihuahua Face". This same boy tried to give me chocolates at Valentine's, too, so he was a bit of an enigma. My friend didn't care a STINKIN' LICK about that nickname or those glasses. (Or maybe my mom paid her?)
Middle school, high school, college, dating, weddings, motherhood- she has been by my side. (My mom is probably still paying her off.)
We were college roommates at The University of Texas at Austin. My favorite part of that was being able to come home to have someone watch me re-enact falling in front of the whole class or getting my backpack stuck in the shutting doors of the bus like a fly smashed between Mr. Miyagi's chopsticks. She laughed hard at these stories. The stupider I looked, the harder she laughed. She had no mercy. I laughed back harder at her stories because she made a fool of herself more than I did.
(She would argue that point but she'd be wrong.)
(One time she fell asleep in class and made a big drool puddle on her desk.)
(It was nearly the size of Lake Erie.)
She has seen me make the ugliest faces known to man while talking in a fake British accent and, yet, we still talk to this day. She's a total keeper. There is no one quite like her. She is the only girl among three brothers. When you find a friend that can make you laugh so hard your eyes water and you can't breathe, you have to overlook the times she made you look like a baboon's ear hole.
Like this time below.
As I mentioned, we were roommates at UT-Austin, but we weren't the only roommates in our apartment. We had a third as our income flow alone would have had us living in the left-hand corner of Lance Armstrong's garage next to old bicycle tires and needles and whatnot.
(I once sat next to Lance Armstrong, his wife and two daughters at Z Tejas Grill on 6th street. This was way before Sheryl Crow even. I wonder if he remembers that I ordered tea?)
One unfortunate girl had to be roommates with us for a period of time and listen to us cackle at inane things. This particular roommate was of the sophisticated, maxed out credit card variety. Her clothes were high-end and fancy, unlike the college t-shirts and shorts my friend and I sported every cotton- pickin' day. One day, a nice, finely knitted sweater of hers caught my friend's eye.
She borrowed it.
Without our roommate's knowledge.
I had no clue either, because, well, finals, assignments, Blue Books, Scantrons, boys and Amy's Ice Cream.
My friend slipped the sweater back in the closet when she was done like she was some kind of Slick Rick. Years later, my friend told me that one fine day our fancy, dolled up roommate had realized someone had borrowed it.
"Ummmm...who borrowed my sweater??" she asked my friend while I was gone one day with a disgusted look on her face.
"I don't know!", my friend stammered. "Why?"
"WELL, it has SNAGS ALL OVER IT and it SMELLS LIKE BODY ODOR!! It STINKS!"
"Oh, no! Um, well, I guess KELLEY must have borrowed it! Wow, what a bummer! I can't believe she did that!"
Bummer, indeed.
Kelley has bad body odor.
Smelly Kelley.
Kelley smells GROSS! HAHA!
That's super funny stuff, right??
KELLEY SMELLS LIKE A HYENA'S GALL BLADDER!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!
It has been 15 years since I've seen that other roommate. Not too long ago, I saw her at Chick-Fil-A.
"Soooo...remember that heinous smelling sweater? I didn't do it," is what I wanted to say to her as our kids crammed waffle fries in their faces.
But, I didn't.
To this day, she thinks I smell like an elephant's armpit. After being sprayed by a skunk in heat.
What can I do?
It's a good thing I love my friend like a sister (who, by the way, doesn't actually stink). I took this one for our little team, but if she blames putrid b.o. on me again, I am going to get a dump load truck of Secret deodorant and unload it in her front yard.
Unless she makes me laugh first.
(Luckily for her, there is a very, very good chance of
that.)
Are we following each other yet?
______________________________
You may not have noticed, but...I tweaked some stuff around the blog. Actually, I didn't do any tweaking. I had a tweaker. Between the two of us, I'm the weaker tweaker. Ha! Oh, me. I get sidetracked too easily. Anyway, the master tweaker/web designer is Robyn of Hollow Tree Ventures. Do you guys know her yet? Besides the fact that she is very efficient, smart, affordable and knowledgeable, that girl is funny. Her blog regularly makes me laugh and her As The Dollhouse Turns series is just good, creative, good, unique, good, good stuff. I have been following her for a while and had no clue she knew how to make HTML bow at her feet! That girl is a magician! She didn't initially design my site, but she is now The Official Break Room Tweaker. (Her badge is being handcrafted as I type.) She whipped things into shape around here, added things, took away things, cleaned up things, ate things (I had a leftover Hot Pocket in the Break Room microwave), drank things (I think she may have even spiked things) and all around did great things. I wanted you to know about her. If you are interested in starting a blog or getting some things cleaned up around your blog, Robyn has graciously offered $50 of her services to one of the commenters on this stinky sweater post! You can see a breakdown of her blogging tricks riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight here.