Dirty Dishes

I had a friend when I was in High School. She always said I was her best friend. I often wondered about this because I know some people throw around the phrase best friend the same way they would say pop tart or new shoes, it has like that much meaning for them. Which is what I think she was doing because frankly I never felt like I was treated the way someone should treat their best friend.

She was a party girl. Therefore she was always inviting me to these raging parties, where I didn’t know anyone other than HER, and then subsequently ditching me to hook up with guys. This happened at least five different times (which people, is four more times than I should have let it happen, but again she was my best friend, right? I was supposed to let her fucking walk all over me!). Anyway it took me a long time to realize (like yesterday) that what she was doing was using me for cover. I can hear it now, her talking to her parents “I’m going to this party, but Danica is coming with me so nothing is going to happen.” And by nothing she meant she was going to get naked with some slit-eyed stinky pot-head in his room upstairs, while Danica? Sweet little Dani? She sits on the couch and wishes she was dead, after drunkenly throwing herself at a boy who pretended to have a really bad cold in order to get away.

Oh the memories, all those good best friend memories, just flooding back. She once stranded me at someones house for two days. TWO DAYS. Because she was drunk the ENTIRE time, and said I couldn’t leave her but also could not take her home because her parents would freak. Never mind that MY parents were going to disown me when I got home. Never mind that I had to sleep in the bed of a stinky bass player named Jim, who was either so nice or so repulsed by me that he slept on the floor. I’m gonna go with nice though, to give Jim the benefit of the doubt. Mostly because he was the only one of the 5 guys that lived together in that house who didn’t have sex with my best friend in those two days. Frankly I think he deserves an award.

That was the last time I let her take me anywhere. Really I think I only saw her once or twice after that. I went away to college, and she continued on her blind drunk path of self destruction. I get a card from her around Christmas time every year though. She still calls me her best friend, which I find both funny and sad.

So for some reason yesterday I was thinking about her, and other people who have called me their best friend, but when the chips were down acted very shitty and unbest friendish. I mean I have spent many lonely unmedicated hours wondering why I haven’t made any really good friends since I moved to Utah. And yesterday I finally saw my life through the lens of these past fuck ups and I’ve decided the problem is me. I just don’t trust people enough to become friends with them. Because, as the old cliche goes, with friends like the ones I’ve had….

Edit: Upon further inspection and recollection I realize that I may have given you all the impression that I was a drunkard in High School. This is totally not true. I was too uptight and repressed to participate in any kind of drinking/partying until I was after the age of 18, which as you know is the legal drinking age in Canada. Even though I lived in Missouri. All these events must have taken place when I was at home on break from the uptight and repressed Mormon collage I attended. Thank You.