Gas up the DeLorean Marty, it was our density.

You know how in Back to the Future Alex P. Keaton (yes, I know he’s Marty McFly then, but I will always think of him as Alex P. Keaton) has a picture of his present day family, and as he goes back in time and starts messing everything up his family starts disappearing because he is changing the past, thus effectively changing the future? Yeah. That part. Anyway, this weekend I was flipping through an old photo album of stuff from high school and college and saw a picture of me in 1989 with a friend that I did not meet until 2004. I’ll wait while you go back and read that again.

Done? Did you get goosebumps?

Seems I was at a party on February 10, 1989 with my room-mate, we’ll call her “Puddin,” when the party pic guy goes by . Puddin sees her old friend from the dorms, yells, “Shelby Shoeshine, get yo’ ass in this picture!” pulls her and her friend into the picture and there’s a photo of me, Puddin, Shelby Shoeshine and a random chick. A few weeks go by, and one of the fraternity guys that doesn’t even really hang out with us that much and when he does is pretty much an a-hole (Hi Rich!) says he paid for a picture of us all at their last meeting and gives it to us. Random to be sure.

Fast forward 15 years. It’s February 23, 2007. I’m a respectible-ish mommy who hardly ever goes to frat parties anymore. I have two little boys and the younger one goes to school with a nice little girl we’ll call “Bella” because, well, it’s her name. Bella and Miles become really great friends and Bella invites him to her birthday party. The day of the party, I wake up in horrible pain with a burst eardrum. There is goo leaking from my head. Through my ear. It hurts. A lot. The Big Dude is recovering from hernia surgery the day before and cannot stand up except to shuffle to find pain medication and the 11 year old is throwing up. INTO A DRAWER. Filled with Legos, Pokemon cards and now, PUKE. The child has never puked into anywhere reasonable to clean in his life and that day was no exception.

So I take Miles to school with a heat pack stuck to the side of my head to dull the pain of my ear and after medicating the Big Dude and administering a television remote and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition to him, drag the Drawer Puker-inner and myself to the doctor. We sat in the waiting room for approximately two minutes before the freaking SWAT team rushes in announces the building is under lockdown because…are you following along? Because there is a SNIPER IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Need more time to review that?

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Yeah. A sniper. In a neighborhood that clever magazine writers like to call “tony.” Tony like the adjective, not the Italian guy. Anyway, we were LOCKED IN THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE FOR THREE HOURS WITH NO FOOD AND MY EAR IS KILLING ME AND THERE ARE NO PAIN KILLERS STRONG ENOUGH AND THE KID WAS STILL PUKING AND WE CANNOT LEAVE BECAUSE WE MIGHT GET SHOT. And I type that in all caps because that is exactly how it felt, that day was in ALL CAPS. And a very bossy 4’10” nurse would not let me look out the window or even move because, well, there was a sniper in all caps out there somewhere. OH, and the battery on my phone died so I couldn’t call work, the husband, no one.

You are kind of wondering about the picture aren’t you? Or did you forget?

I eventually escaped the building (serpentine!) drove the car around, went back in for the puker, used myself as a human shield to get him out (serpentine!) picked up the prescriptions (finally) and made it back home…just in time to pick up the little kid from school where he reminded me that “Mom! Today is Bella’s birthday party!”

Oh yeah. The birthday party. That we haven’t purchased a present for because Mommy was bleeding from her eardrums and being held under lockdown by a SWAT team. That party. I grabbed the kid, swung into a Hallmark, handed him $40 and looked longingly at the unopened vicodin prescription. He returned with a gift bag of goodies and I drove him to the party. I considered kissing him goodbye at the curb but decided against it since I’d never really met Bella’s parents. I entered a peaceful room of three very lovely women chatting who introduced themselves and then made the very big mistake of asking me “How are you?”

And I made the even bigger mistake of truthfully telling them how I was. I told them every detail of my DAY IN ALL CAPS and then I told them that I was sure they all were very nice but I’d really like to leave now because there was a bottle of vicodin and a Jack and Pepsi waiting for me back at the house. And they all looked at each other knowingly, and then my child sympathetically.

All I can say is that it’s a good thing that kid is cool, or they’d probably all have hidden from me for the next few years. More than they did.

Fast forward two more years to me entering a lingerie store where Bella’s mother got to second base with me in a dressing room, I MEAN - expertly fitted me for bras.

Fast forward to this post where I talk about her awesome store and proclaim her Lingerie Barbie even though she’s totally not because she’s a hot tomboy which means she’s actually Barbie’s little sister Skipper.

Fast forward to this week when I found a picture of her and me together in 1989. Twenty frigging years ago, can you believe that shit?

See? Just like Back to the Future. Only backwards. Or something. Everything is the same except for (and, dude - this is creepy) somehow the flux capacitor caused a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, Skipper’s beer has disappeared right out of her hand! Wha? (Or she's preparing for the future by guessing Shelby Shoeshine's cupsize. Not sure.)

-click to embiggen-

“Yes'm, old friends is always best,
‘less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of.”
SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909)