Oh, I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Every once in a while, the clouds part, the sun shines down on you, and you open the cabinet doors in your bathroom to find that you have almost an entire 18 pack of toilet paper just waiting to be used.

Even better, you find that you've got someone waiting on you outside the bathroom doors, someone who is going to be at least as excited as you are to have reams of the white stuff at your disposal.

Double bonus if the "someone" is actually "several someones".  And triple bonus if the someones, after hearing your retelling of the infamous Neighbor Letter incident, decide that the ONLY appropriate rebuttal is to wrap the offending neighbors' house.  At 4am.

And this, my friends, is how you find yourself sprinting frantically down your street, giggling manically, trailing toilet paper, and leaving a decidedly UN-subtle trail of footprints in the flour you accidentally dumped all over the sidewalk.

It's how you find yourself hosting spontaneous dance competitions, recorded for all of posterity on video camera and set to an all-80's music theme.

It's how you find yourself one of three girls, sitting shoulder to shoulder in an empty bathtub, talking about (EARMUFFS, family members) sex after marriage.  And forgetting that the whole reason you went into the bathroom in the first place was to try and remove an errant thorn, stuck in the foot of one of these girls when she dashed across the street to ring the doorbell of your (fun, not evil) neighbors eight or nine times.  Just to see what would happen.

It's how you find yourself bundled up in blankets on a pallet on the floor, watching a string of bad movies on a Friday-night lay-in.  And then covering your faces with a blanket and screaming that the last and worst of the spectacularly bad movies (Mysterious Skin, by the way - HOW IS THIS MOVIE NOT BREAKING EVERY CHILD PORNOGRAPHY LAW OUT THERE? have any of you seen this??) be turned off immediately before the images broke our brains forever.  And then laughing hysterically at the horribleless of all three movies whilst retreating to the back porch to sit, still bundled in our blankets, and talk about whatever happens to cross our minds.

It's how a catch phrase of "don't judge me, but..." can become both a joke and an avenue to talk about any and everything.

And it all started with a common dislike of personal hygiene.  If that isn't a recipe for friendship success, then I don't want to know what is.

Tell me, what crazy things brought you together with your friends?

Comments

[Holly]

I must say that ONE of the many crazy things that brought me together with one of my fabulous BFF's is when I was attending an evening out after my husbands 10 year class reunion. That night one of the other no good girls that attended High School with my husband had the audacity to say something rude about me right there behind my back (of course she was to gone to realize I could HEAR her). Needless to say it was BFF'S at first sight because my fabulous friend (who I had just really met that night)was quick to say "don't listen to what she says, besides she has on ugly underwear!" (The girl kept walking up and down the stairs w/o realizing she was displaying the ugly underwear for the bar to see!!) Whoever would have thought that evening the clouds would part and the sun would shine down on one of the best BFF's ever! I am SO glad that it did!! XOXO~

[tiff]

aww, I loved this.

people ask how I met my closest friends, and it always dissolves into giggles because I usually can't remember, or if I did it would be something so silly that no one would understand the leap. One of my good friends I loved immediately because she knew the name of my nail polish!

common dislike of personal hygiene, though, takes the cake. Showering is such a pain!

[Laurel]

There is nothing like silly vandalism to bring friends together! My BFF-NYC and I bonded over a hostile work environment and crazy dating experiences. Even though we both have better jobs and committed boyfriends, now, we both miss those less stable days.

[Operation Pink Herring]

I missed the whole NL saga, and I just have to comment on that. HOLY SHIT. What assholes!

I love my BFFs because we can go through the Wendy's drive-through, eat our food in the parking lot, and then go through again for seconds. I love them because we can watch 8 Below and cry and not be ashamed. The only way I could love them more is if they lived in the same city as me!

[Trudie]

Some years back I saw a wonderful sign in the yard of a house in Ostersund, Sweden. This was in the middle of a row of identical houses, (70's style, circa)with identical, well-manicured lawns, flowers standing at attention in identical planters or flowerbeds. A perfectly perfect picture - except for the one house in the middle of the row.... The owner had obviously not even brought in any topsoil for his smallish garden, so the weeds and bushes had sort of taken over - and in the middle of it all was erected a sign saying:
Nature Preserve
The Lord only knows how many sleepless nights this person must've caused his neighbors...

As for BFFs - one survived college with me, one had the same idiot for a boss and the third and I survived working in a non-profit organisation in our hometown...

[-R-]

My work BFF and I bonded over crazy coworkers. And my law school BFF and I bonded over crazy classmates. So pretty much, mutual amazement/disgust for crazy people has brought me to most of my BFFs.

[Helen]

Food, usually food has something to do with it. Most of my best best friends have been my best frieds since I was a naive teenager, we were all terribly proper and religious and wholsome,so of course we had to stick together because the fun people were sure to be seen as far away from us as possible. Thing is, the older we get the more irreverent we are, now we are total heathens and have more fun than those teenagers any old day.
I have such lovely times with my girlfriends these days and we really do always seem to include food.

[Angela]

What a fantastic night!! And we have some asshole neighbors too, if you'd like to bring some of that toilet paper over!

My closest friends are people I met in school through the years--man, I miss having that huge pool of peers to find friends in!

[Chiada]

Well, there was this one time when I was living on my own and I was recently engaged to Hub-E. My best friend Maya was visiting me and somehow one of my bra's decided to show up for the party. I don't know if I was folding laundry or just hadn't picked up my clothes or what. But it was out. And it was one of the "armored" bras, totally padded. And it was huge. Not that I need padding. I'm already very busy as it is. Anyways, Maya and I are laughing about it and she picks it up and, while she is squatting down on the floor, she holds it over her knees and notes how big the cups are, that they fit over her knees. We're cracking up and then somehow I get ahold of the bra and I decide to use it as a slingshot. I pull back on one of the straps, aim, and release. The bra went flying across the room only to land on its cups, right side up, as if it were standing on its cups. We rolled on the floor in hysterics at the armored bra that could stand up on its own two cups. It was awesome. We still refer to the bra incident from time to time.

[Hoover]

Two words: Community showers.

[Suebob]

My college friends and I met building a Rose Parade Float. I am going to see one of them next weekend. Yay.

[blogging barbie]

i loved this post so much...although it made me miss all my girlfriends oh so terribly.

it sounds like you're truly blessed to have such good girlfriends, and in the crazy lives we lead, that means more than words and stories can convey :)

[ashley]

Unfortunantley, I have never TP'd. I'm a little ashamed of myself. I must take care of this soon.

[Amy C.]

Hey, it's me! And I wrote on my blog! And tagged you in a survey! Fun all around.

[nancypearlwannabe]

I love me some unexpected toilet paper.

[Grace]

I met one of my closest when she moved into our college townhouse after a particularly horrid housemate moved out. Loud & outgoing to my quiet & contented, she popped up to my room a night I had adamantly refused to go out until I had found a job. She jumped in my lap and wouldn't move til I promised to ditch the sweats in favor of the bars. And all this from a girl I had met only a wk before! Love her!