It's not uncommon for someone to ask me if my favorite color is yellow, given my name and all. But when I think of yellow, I think of my friend. The Moaner. You'll meet her tomorrow, but I want you to hear this story. Because it's hilarious. To me anyway. If you don't think so- then pretend you didn't read it and spare my feelings.
Last summer, I moved in with a dear friend of mine into her well apointed condo. To paint a mental image for you, think of an easter basket. Now think of a bomb. Put the bomb in the basket. Detonate it. Taa Daa!! Her apartment. Every surface is covered in some sort of pastel creation. And the blankets on the couch. Ohhhhh the blankets. Ever been in a guest bathroom and seen that hand towel? The one that you know is there for you to use, yet you are hesitant because you know that the second you do, it's no longer perfect, and it's your fault. You ruined the aesthetic. How selfish.
But blankets. They're everywhere. Fragile quilts from a bygone era when Grandmothers sat in circles, sewing these beautiful quilts to pass down to future generations so that their descendents wouldn't shiver on a cold winter's nights. Clearly they didn't see the invention of fleece or sewing machines in the future. Regardless, several of these quilts made their way into her living room. And I don't like to move them. But back to yellow.
When I moved into my apartment, quite a few neighbors were moving out. Embarking on their individual journeys out into the real world. And leaving their junk furniture at the garbage facility in our complex. Lots of furniture. We became quite the scavengers. On one random passing, she found it. A wicker chair reminiscent of one she'd seen on a magazine cover. It was painted yellow and had a pink chenille coushin. Adorable, really. But the one she found was hideous. It looked like it housed a whole colony of bugs. But she saw the potential and snapped it up and thew it in the bed of her truck.
About this time, I had decided to paint a few end tables black to match my new bedroom decor, so I was in the market for some spray paint. As luck would have it, so was she. So we went to Walmart and spent a good fifteen minutes staring at the paint cans, trying to figure out which would be best. Gloss? Flat? Primer?! I grabbed two cans of black, and she got three cans of yellow. Surely three cans will be enough to paint a small wicker chair, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong. Six cans later, we had successfully painted a parking spot sunshine yellow, but the chair was soaking up the paint. We didn't know what to do. In a stroke of genius, she thought to call her friend, whose boyfriend knew all about it. In about .16 seconds he told us we needed primer. Ahhhhh, yes. Primer. So, after the third trip to Walmart, we had two cans of primer, the last four cans of paint in the store, and some of our confidence back. Boyfriend was right, and we soon had one yellow chair. Success!
*I might also mention here that we had quite the scare when I realized the possibility that what yellow paint didn't make it onto the pavement or chair miiiiggghhhtttt have accidentally blown all over the black mustang beside us. But it didn't. Whew. That were close. There's no denying yellow spray paint when every neighbor you have saw you out in the parking lot.
Fast forward 12 hours and Moaner and I were painting my new bedroom the most beautiful shade of grey. It was Ralph Lauren paint, Orion Grey. I was obsessed. This was around the time I had a little grey addiction. Ok big. Grey paint, grey bedding, grey cardigans, grey jewelry... you get it. My little helper was sitting on the ground doing a horrendous job at trimming out my windows when I went to hand her the phone. Her girlfriend with the boyfriend had called to check the progress of the chair. When she looked up at me, I saw them. Two completely yellow nostrils. I don't know how to explain it. Except to say that her nose looked like someone had swabbed the inside of it with a hilighter.
I laughed so hard I might have had to sit down and cross my legs. Then realized that wasn't working so I ran to the bathroom. That might have happened.
So now you know. When I think yellow, I think of her. And her yellow nose hairs.
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Faller
The Faller will be the first in my Friends series. Let me preface this by saying that her name will be perhaps the most appropriate of all nicknames that shall be formulated hereafter. The Faller falls. Every day. Multiple times a day. If she's not falling, then she's thinking about not falling, and her feet are plotting against her.
Faller is a beautiful girl with an incredible wit about her. She's always doing or saying something hilarious, but in a Will Ferrell not-trying-to-be-funny way. She'll probably tell me she's insulted for the comparison.
My first Faller in action memory occured at our favorite hang out, a bar back in our college town where we could be found many week nights, and certainly every weekend night. We hadn't been friends for long, so I had yet to hear of her inexplicable tendency to wind up on the ground.
On this particular evening, she had been on a date night or something of the sort, so she was wearing a short dress and cute sandals. I still want to sandals. I might steal them when she's not looking. Faller was perched up on a bar stool outside on the patio, talking to a circle of 3 friends. Myself included. Behind faller was a picnic table, where a homeless man with an uncanny resemblence to St. Nick was taking a nap. And by taking a nap I mean passed out.
I don't know exactly what transpired to make her turn and look back, but when she did, Faller's chair went back with her, onto Santa. Not only did she fall, but she kicked my drink out of my hand, which propmtly went airborn, then descended back down- onto her. Santa was startled out of his nap, and quickly asked her if SHE was okay. "Sir i have a home and more than one pair of shoes, are you okay?" was her response. Classic. This was the first of many falls.
The other, and most infamous of all her many falls, incident that I will talk about in this post is the Mystery Fall. We don't know quite how it happened actually. One Sunday morning, I called her to be let into her apartment to retrieve my belongings. It took her a good 5 minutes to get down stairs, and when she opened the door I knew why. Faller had two scrape/gashes on each of her shins. It looked like someone had hit her across her legs with a lead pipe wrapped in sand paper. I would have cried. I guess it was business as usual for her.
The next day, my charitable self took her to the doctor that her mother had located for her to have her legs checked out. Hands down THE most memorable/hilarious doctor's visit of my lifetime. I guess the fact that we had to drive through the ghetto to get there should have been an indicator of what was lying ahead.
We pulled up to an office that looked like a clinic for homeless people funded by a non-profit organization that probably couldn't even afford phones. It was that kind of place. Once we were in, a troll of a woman entered the room. I thought she was the Nurses Aid. Turns out, she was the doctor. This woman had to turn sideways to get through the door. She spoke in one word phrases, and barked answers. Once inside the room, she sat on a stool and scooted herself around the room. The fact that Faller had no clue what had happened to her didn't help matters. Try explaining a drunken escapade to a 400 pound woman with toenails thicker than cardboard and feet jammed into sandals that look like she shoes my dad wears out in the yard to scoop up dog poop. You get nowhere.
After the roughest examination I've ever witnessed, the doctor said "Looks bruised." Oh, really doc? No kidding. She gave the wounded Faller nothing. No pain killers, no sympathy, no nothing.
So, we got her crutches and hobbled back to the car. And I laughed all the way home.
*Our best estimation is that she fell on the stairs in the alley leading up to her apartment, although we can't rationalize a way in which she could fall and sustain such an injury. And she doesn't remember. So maybe she DID get hit with a pipe.
Faller is a beautiful girl with an incredible wit about her. She's always doing or saying something hilarious, but in a Will Ferrell not-trying-to-be-funny way. She'll probably tell me she's insulted for the comparison.
My first Faller in action memory occured at our favorite hang out, a bar back in our college town where we could be found many week nights, and certainly every weekend night. We hadn't been friends for long, so I had yet to hear of her inexplicable tendency to wind up on the ground.
On this particular evening, she had been on a date night or something of the sort, so she was wearing a short dress and cute sandals. I still want to sandals. I might steal them when she's not looking. Faller was perched up on a bar stool outside on the patio, talking to a circle of 3 friends. Myself included. Behind faller was a picnic table, where a homeless man with an uncanny resemblence to St. Nick was taking a nap. And by taking a nap I mean passed out.
I don't know exactly what transpired to make her turn and look back, but when she did, Faller's chair went back with her, onto Santa. Not only did she fall, but she kicked my drink out of my hand, which propmtly went airborn, then descended back down- onto her. Santa was startled out of his nap, and quickly asked her if SHE was okay. "Sir i have a home and more than one pair of shoes, are you okay?" was her response. Classic. This was the first of many falls.
The other, and most infamous of all her many falls, incident that I will talk about in this post is the Mystery Fall. We don't know quite how it happened actually. One Sunday morning, I called her to be let into her apartment to retrieve my belongings. It took her a good 5 minutes to get down stairs, and when she opened the door I knew why. Faller had two scrape/gashes on each of her shins. It looked like someone had hit her across her legs with a lead pipe wrapped in sand paper. I would have cried. I guess it was business as usual for her.
The next day, my charitable self took her to the doctor that her mother had located for her to have her legs checked out. Hands down THE most memorable/hilarious doctor's visit of my lifetime. I guess the fact that we had to drive through the ghetto to get there should have been an indicator of what was lying ahead.
We pulled up to an office that looked like a clinic for homeless people funded by a non-profit organization that probably couldn't even afford phones. It was that kind of place. Once we were in, a troll of a woman entered the room. I thought she was the Nurses Aid. Turns out, she was the doctor. This woman had to turn sideways to get through the door. She spoke in one word phrases, and barked answers. Once inside the room, she sat on a stool and scooted herself around the room. The fact that Faller had no clue what had happened to her didn't help matters. Try explaining a drunken escapade to a 400 pound woman with toenails thicker than cardboard and feet jammed into sandals that look like she shoes my dad wears out in the yard to scoop up dog poop. You get nowhere.
After the roughest examination I've ever witnessed, the doctor said "Looks bruised." Oh, really doc? No kidding. She gave the wounded Faller nothing. No pain killers, no sympathy, no nothing.
So, we got her crutches and hobbled back to the car. And I laughed all the way home.
*Our best estimation is that she fell on the stairs in the alley leading up to her apartment, although we can't rationalize a way in which she could fall and sustain such an injury. And she doesn't remember. So maybe she DID get hit with a pipe.
Friends
My job allows me much downtime, and I've decided to allocate a good chunk of that time to this blog. I'm starting a new series of posts about my friends. You'll meet them all at some point, and many will be mentioned more than once. To keep them anonymous, I'll come up with an appropriate nickname for each of them.
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