A Friend is a Present You Give Yourself

Pat and Nelda, Midland, Texas

These two smiling beauties have been friends since 1978, an incredible twenty-nine years. Pat, from South Texas, is in town for the week visiting Nelda. For the last couple of years when Pat's in town, Nelda calls and invites me over. I think you can take one look at that impish Pat and have no doubt that it is something I look forward to immensely.

When I arrived for a visit yesterday afternoon, Pat was "aggravating" Nelda by putting the bow on her forehead. It was a technique she was using to try to distract Nelda, because Nelda was beating the tar out of her in Gin Rummy. Later, though, Nelda got her revenge by popping her knuckles to "aggravate" and distract Pat.

Pat, originally from Tennessee, is one of those rare people that can take any ordinary event and make it a story. I can't recall all the things she had us howling about around Nelda's kitchen table, but I do remember this one. She was sharing how she's been getting these terrible leg cramps at night. One night a fierce cramp woke her from a dead sleep. She crawled to the floor and was yelping in pain. Her dear husband came to her, leaned over, and in all earnestness said, "Angel Face, all you need to do is just think of something else." Just think of something else?! Angel Face shot him a look with a glare in her eye, said "I am thinking about something else, like deciding where I might put my foot when this cramp stops."

For all the cutting up, the whoppers, and the laughing we did somehow during the afternoon, though, we didn't get around to re-telling how Nelda and I became friends as we usually do. So I'm going to make things right (Hello Nelda, Hello Pat) and share it here.

I've known Nelda since 1984. Nelda was Office Manager for a bustling contractor company and I was her "computer lady." I was a babe in the woods at 25 but was trying so hard to be a serious and helpful professional. One day I was teaching her a new program. However, I kept referring to the ^ character as a "carrot top." I was earnestly giving her step-by-step instructions, but yet kept saying "carrot top," "carrot top" "carrot top." I must have said it a hundred times. After a while, she looked at me with those pretty blue eyes twinkling and said, "You do know that character is called a caret, right? Or sometimes house top, but not usually carrot top." And for some reason, instead of my dying of embarrassment right then and there, Nelda and I had a big hearty laugh about it and became friends.

Sometimes great friendships have such humble (and humbling) beginnings. Thank you, Mr. Carrot Top.