Baby Not Mine

My only-child friend of almost 20 years is creating something in her image all over again. And now they can show you what it looks like before it even comes out -- and we're not talking that snowy picture of glob that people hallucinate feet and heads into and try to convince people who see it that it's a baby.

I think her having another baby is most incredible because I've loved her since the first day I met her. Let's go back to that fateful day in Ms. Kidd's 5th grade class, shall we?

I think it started something like, "Mind if I sit here?"

"No," she said. "That's for my friend Stacy."

Mortified (did I mention this was a new school, my seventh new school in my lifetime at that point), I relocated. The small-faced girl I sat next to ended up being my best friend in 5th grade, but the summer after, she was quickly replaced by Ms. Heather Kellogg.

This Heather girl would do anything. She'd take a dump in public if she had to go. She'd steal cigarettes and money for the bus or a White Castle from her mom's abandoned purses. She was so brave she hung posters of Kirk Cameron on the ceiling above her bed, which was something only 14 year olds were brave enough to do. She kissed the boys in her apartment complex and dropped from the upstairs balcony onto the ground below. She actually owned and had read Judy Blume's Forever.

The first time she spent the night at my house, I had to promise my parents I wouldn't have her over again. She actually put her toes in her mouth and rolled around on the floor while singing. Another one of her favorite tricks was the leg behind the head one, which she continued to demonstrate well into college. Once my mom got so mad at her for always being around I think she called her the p word. Yes, my mother, using the p word. I know.

We spent a lot of time laying in ditches. One of our childhood agreements was that if we ever ran away from home, we'd go to the drain pipe under the road leading up to Mother of Good Counsel. It was our favorite hangout, where we'd talk about our top fives and eat Cool Ranch Doritos. (Her list was capped by Tommy Goins, whose feathered hair I never found attractive; mine starred Matt McCune who rode my bus and actually gave me a note once that said, "I liked it better when we were broken up." He wasn't actually very cute. And I'm sure he has a small penis.)

Another fun ditch game we played was discovered on accident while we were sledding at night. We got too tired from trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill so we just laid in the ditch. We started to imagine being homeless and decided that it wouldn't be too bad to be homeless on that night. Of course, we were completely bundled up with full bellies and a soft bed to go home to.

We played Rack-O in her double bed and Contra on her Nintendo (she was the master at entering the secret code and getting all the bonus men) and went swimming at her apartment pool. When I crashed my bike on the way home from the dentist and broke my collar bone, I walked to her house (I was on my way there anyway). A tornado warning that same summer, when I'd had to take Leiah with me to the pool, found us all in a bathtub in her little apartment, like the rub-a-dub-dub guys... Heather, me, Leiah. Heather's mom was also there, and the neighbors had come downstairs so they were hanging out in the tub too. About three minutes after Leiah peed in the tub (Jan said that by no means was anyone getting out of the tub until the warning was over), the warning expired. I think we also ordered a pizza just before the weather turned bad, and Heather and I discussed if the pizza guy was laying in a ditch outside. What was with us and ditches?


Anyway, I hope her new boy is just like her. She's already got one, Chase Alexander Wall, who has her knack for being up to no good and still captivating to do-gooders like me. I hope this next one gets her outrageousness. Her sass. Her mouth. Her courage. Her unquenchable spirit. I could use a friend in this new generation.