DAY TWO of the #The100DayProject: Stacey
The most difficult part about telling the story of our FORTY-FIVE year friendship is narrowing it down to something less than 1,000 pages. I’d love to know how many of those years were spent laughing. I’m not good at the maths, but my calculations gave me 44.5 years. Approximately.
One time when we were like 11, we decided to take her canoe out on the creek behind her house. What could go wrong? I mean, we had earned our boating badge in Girl Scouts. Her older brother, Mark, didn’t seem to honor that certification when he came stomping down to the water’s edge with a face far too stern for a 15-year-old gentleman. As punishment, he made us carry the canoe back up the hill on our heads. He didn’t find the laughter appropriate. Apparently we could have drowned or something...despite also having our SWIMMING BADGE.
Then there was the time we decided to make oatmeal face masks in her mom’s kitchen. We slathered on the concoction we read about in “Teen” magazine and closed our eyes. Then, OUT. OF. NOWHERE. I felt a splat on the side of my head. Stacey had hurled a fistful of the goo right at me. No warning. Not even a snicker. It was on like Donkey Kong and we had a full-on mask fight in her kitchen. I think her mom found dried oatmeal like 4 months later behind a wall hanging.
In this photo, we’re wearing matching shirts we had made with “OoLaLa” ironed on them. Can’t imagine why we didn’t garner more attention from the fellas at the mall. I mean, what with the braces, comb in the back pocket of our jeans, and scent of Love’s Baby Soft and Oxy10. Not that we cared. We were strictly there for photo booths and chocolate.
We had so many sleepovers. We’d put hot rollers in our hair, eat Sour Cream & Onion Doritos, watch “Dallas” and decide when to preheat the bed with her high-tech electric blanket.
The raciest thing we ever did was throw two eggs at a neighbor’s house. The dad was sitting right at the window with the light on. I can still picture him! It’s not like we disliked them. We were so dumb! We even ran right back to her house, like 100 feet away! So amateur.
She was my Ride-or-Die before it was a thing. Unless we were trying to get up Joppa Farm Rd on our bikes. Then she was my Push-or-Die.
We still leave each other voicemails that are absolutely unintelligible. They are one of us gasping, saying a word (barely), snorting, whispering, laughing, and finally giving up. I’ve saved them and play them because they’re worth more to me than that pair of hand-me-down Calvin Klein jeans she gave me.
Our stories often included the phrase “We should save our money...” So many plans. We still say it and we still have schemes and dreams. We keep each other young and, so often, sane. Years later, I’d still choose her to sing “White Coral Bells” with, accompanied by burping from reflux. ❤️
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