BFF, or, The Axis of Evil Takes NYC

From March 9-12 I was thrilled by the presence of two of my best and oldest friends, Erin "SaleRack" Mulcahy and Cara "The BusinessWoman" Shannon. Within 10 minutes of arriving at my apartment Erin had started her shopping trip with "the find of the century" and I had laughed harder than I've laughed in 6 months. While they spent the majority of their time lost in the subway system (even though I had provided them not only with a detailed Itinerary but also with a very comprehensive subway map) I spent most of my time with them laughing until my stomach hurt and tears were streaming down my face.

What is it like when 3 girls share a 200 square-foot apartment for four days? Let's just say that the floor was completely covered in panties and jeans and that on Saturday night I burned off part of my bangs and my left eyebrow.

One of the best things about friends you've known since the most awkward of awkward phases is that you have such a rich shared history. And I want to share a part of that history with you. I met Erin and Cara in 2nd grade, when I moved back to Minneapolis and started going to Annunciation Catholic School. We weren't friends until 5th grade, however, in part because I lived on the wrong side of Lyndale, and in part because they were, as I wrote in my 4th grade journal, "brown-nosing rat hogs." We had rats in our classroom and Erin, a true youngest child, would wait until 10 seconds before the bell rang to share them with other kids, simply because the last person holding the rat was the one who had to clean up after it. Clever little bitch.

When we moved to 53rd and Humboldt the girls and I started walking to school, and so started a friendship that was based on mutual nerdiness, wild imagination, and unabashed self-entertainment. We were the girls who made up our own way of speaking (the dreaded sing-song that makes my mom's hair stand on end) and made up rhyming songs about everything that happened to us. We gave each other nonsense nicknames (I have no idea how Cara became Barnabas or how Erin became Barnell). We had bangs and braces and high-waisted jeans and had never kissed boys and got drunk off of Kool-Aid or chocolate milk and we were totally fine with that.

For years Erin and Cara and I entertained each other by playing a simple game of the imagination. It goes something like this: you describe an encounter with a prostitute, where you meet her, what she's wearing, any distinguishing features. After you give a detailed description, you end your story with some variation of, "you look closely, and you realize that you almost slept with {insert name of your grade school principal, high school gym teacher, or classmate's unattractive mother here}. I don't know where we got such vivid descriptions of hookers, or why or how we invented this game, but if you're ever in New York, we'll play this game until you pee your pants. That's a promise.

Cara also kept us entertained with her super-human memory. Erin has zero memory of the past. She would sit next to someone for an entire year and copy their math homework and still not be able to remember their name. I thought I had a fairly good memory of our early years, but as with every other memory I have, it is selective. Cara remembers every gem. Our sixth-grade math teacher screaming, "I ONLY MAKE SIXTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR!" Who went to what dance with whom, who made out in the lunchroom, nothing is too small to have a space reserved in Cara's superbrain.

Now, Cara has fulfilled her destiny and is actually businesswoman in Seattle. Erin turned her ADHD into a career and is a pediatric nurse in Minneapolis. How wonderful it is that even being spread out across three time zones we can get together for a weekend and be 13 again, only without the braces and with more alcohol. I'm sure Cara can remember all that we've been through, and I'm not sure that I want to remember, but I'm so happy to say that these girls are my friends. Having them around made me realize how hard it is to find friends who really get you, who understand you when you say, "I can't handle this" and laugh when you say you want to kick a pigeon in the face. I love both of you bitches.

My beautiful friends.

The smartest girl I know and the girl with the best sense of direction sitting next to the subway map that they found unreadable.

Resting after a long but triumphant day of shopping.

Never let an elderly waiter take your photo. Unless you only want half your face in the picture.