She comes in EVERY week, this girl. At LEAST once a week. In high school, she thought she was my best friend, and she followed me around everywhere. She wrote me notes. She constantly talked to me. She tried switching her class schedule around so she could be near me, which of course didn't work because she was in the special ed classes and I was in the regular Regents-level classes. She had my wardrobe memorized. She tried doing her hair like me. To be honest, I think she was in love with me.
For the life of me, I cannot remember this chick's name. For the sake of my entry, I suppose I'll call her my Favorite Friend, because that's what she calls me. I use this term EXTREMELY loosely, and extremely sarcastically.
She's discovered where I work. This is two years after I graduated from high school; she finds me again and decides to come by my store two or three times a week to see me.
People, I do have a fan club. It is a small and disorganized fan club consisting of a retard named Marty, two retards called The Change Twins, a fair-sized number of gay people who perform in drag every Saturday night at Chances and need me to help them choose their songs, a really sweet kid who wrote me a love poem the other day, and my Favorite Friend. I do feel loved, oh yes, but... but damn it's an eclectic mix... and truly, honestly, not to be rude BUT! NOT generally the people I'd wanna go out with every Saturday night!
Well, anyway, my Favorite Friend came in the other day and I saw her before she came in. So I dove behind the counter and hid in a tiny little cubbyhole beneath my register. Matt, the manager on duty, saw her coming too, and fully supported my decision to hide.
Favorite Friend walked around the store for five or ten minutes and was about to leave when she changed her mind, walked all the way behind the counter, found me in my cubbyhole, curled up in a little wad behind a Glamour magazine, and yelped joyously, "whatcha doin' back here, Good Buddy?"
"Uh... hiding," I said honestly, trying not to burst out laughing. Honestly, guys, I'd NEVER make fun of mentally handicapped or, uh... IQ-deficient people just because of their shortcomings, but... but GAHD, this chick is SO annoying... And I couldn't help laughing a little.
"What're ya doing down there anyway, favorite friend?"
"Reading."
Whatcha reading?"
"Glamour magazine," I said.
"Wow, that magazine SUCKS!" she announced loudly, laughing because I was laughing, thinking there must be some hilariously amusing joke going on in all of this, not realizing that she WAS the joke. "Why aren't you doing any work?"
"Well, I guess I'm kinda tired," I replied.
"So what kinda music do you listen to?" she asked suddenly.
"Anything except country, gospel, countrygospel, and really fucked-up international music," I told her.
"I LOVE country!" she said. "I was born and raised on it. My dad's a singer-songwriter. He's gonna make a CD!"
"Yeah? Well..." I was SOOOO trying to be serious. I was SO trying to control myself. Matt was holding his breath and turning red and I could just see him imagining Favorite Friend in a barn in front of a water trough... "Well, I guess I like listening to, uh... chick music, you know?"
"I LOVE Alanis Morrissette!" said Favorite Friend, obviously trying to impress somebody. "And the Cranberries!"
"Cranberries are cool," I told her. "So, uh..." And then I just couldn't help myself. She was just ASKING -- BEGGING -- to be made fun of. "So do you have their one CD with the couch on it?"
"No! But I'm getting that one!"
And then I broke. The giggles just started pouring out of me. Matt was still holding his breath and started walking away. I knew if he looked at her, he'd break too. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," I said, almost genuinely sorry. "But, you know, it was kinda a trick question... ALL of the Cranberries albums have a couch on them..." (Except for their latest, but that one has a couch on the inside...)
"Ohhhh yeah, you're right! I never realized that I guess," said Favorite Friend, trying to catch herself mid-stupidity. "Yeah, there's the one with the couch just sitting there, and then there's the one with the couch flying through the air..."
(There isn't a Cranberries album with a couch flying through the air; I PROMISE you there isn't... NOW she was just making shit up trying to sound cool... It just WASN'T working... Matt started choking on some imagined saliva...)
"Well," I said finally, "I'd better get back to work now."
"Why? Do you have a boss who comes in?" she asked.
"Yeah." Matt, my manager, had, with a great deal of effort, managed to tune out my Favorite Friend.
"I bet your boss is WICKED FAT and BALD!" She was practically yelling and her face seemed to exhibit spiritual bliss. I think she was happy that somebody as cool as yours truly was actually talking to her. Uh... heh.
"Uh... hey Matt? Are you wicked fat and bald?"
Matt shrugged. Favorite Friend giggled. "Ooooohhhh, YOU are the boss!"
(Who's your daddy?)
Matt couldn't speak. He was off in his own little world, probably chanting to himself, "safe warm place, safe warm place..." I, on the other hand, was crossing my legs so I didn't wet myself, and laughing so hard I thought I'd start to cough up blood.
"Wow," said Favorite Friend. "I really crack you up! You're laughing really hard!" She started laughing herself, thinking she was in on some huge joke...
FINALLY, she left and when she was at a safe distance, Matt and I both collapsed in helpless heaps.
"So, uh... Matt?"
"Yeah?"
"There's a flying couch on one of the Cranberries' albums?"
Pause. Smile. "No."
Ten minutes more of Helena-hysterics.
Matt: "I just kept picturing her with a feed bag..."
I left work STILL kind of giggling, and clutching the love-note that a sweet boy had left me. And I was thinking, "DAMN, what would the world be like without my harem of homos and retards!?"
It's a question I DOUBT many people ponder. And you know, for as annoying as Favorite Friend is, she -- and various other mentally-handicapped people, and various drag queen kids who come in lisping, "Oh how I LOOOOOOOVE Mariah!" and a small variety of other people my co-workers giggle at -- they all seriously put some joy into my life. Even if I was picking on her.
WHEE!
~Helena*
Everybody knows the world is full of stupid people..." --The Record Town theme song