Famous last words!!!! So most everyone has had THAT friend, you know the one. The one that cons you in to doing things that you know you shouldn't be doing. They say phrases like "It's no big deal" or "We won't get caught, come on it will be fun". THAT friend is part of the reason you were grounded more than the average child was. THAT friend, till this day, is still your bestest ever, that without, your childhood would have been as dull as hell :)! Well that friend for me was Theresa!
Theresa and I became friends when we were 8 years old. For the life of either of us, we can't remember how we met. I think it was at another friends pool party. Anyways, Theresa provided me with some of the most memorable adventures I've ever had!
We did everything together. We had the best adventures! We loved to play spy, we were amazing at it. In fact we used to jump off her roof so we could learn how to "tuck and roll" in case we were being chased by bad guys. We were also identical twins named Melissa (me) and Alyssa!
Her parents had a motor home and Theresa found the keys, so we would play in the motor home. We would turn on the radio and the CB. We would pretend to be the female versions of Smokey and The Bandit. Well the truckers on the other end were NOT impressed buy our constant "Breaker breaker, 10-4 big buddy.." every funny thing we could remember from that particular movie. One time when I went over to her house I noticed that the Motor home was parked against the rain gutter on the roof. Now this didnt' look right to me. She had a sleep over the night before and they got the keys and kind of "drove" the motor home there. Her mom hadn't noticed yet, as she left for work very early in the morning. Anyways, Theresa told me that we needed to move the motor home back to it's original position so she wouldnt' get grounded, again. The girl was always grounded! So, she twisted my arm a bit and I conceded. So our brilliant plan was to back the motor home up. Well we did that, we backed the motor home up, but backed it up too far...oh did I mention we were 11 years old? So when we realized that we backed it up too far, we took the keys out, put it in neutral and pushed it forward. Ok, we did this in broad daylight. It wasn't like she lived out in the boonies either. She lived on a cul de sac. Anyways when her neighbor asked what we were doing, we said we were getting our exercise. Well, this was so much fun we kept backing the motor home up and pushing it forward. While one would back the motor home up, the other would be standing on the bumper holding on to the ladder. Well one time I decided it would be fun to put the motor home into "drive". Well I hit the brakes before I ran it back into the rain gutter. But being only 11, I had NO idea that when you took your foot off the brake that the motor home would just keep on going! See where I'm going with this? Well Theresa was holding on to the ladder in the back. Needless to say that when I hit the rain gutter, her face was totally smashed against the back window. Had I not been completely devastated, I would have laughed, as it was like a cartoon. So, I get out of the vehicle and I'm completely scared and bawling my eyes out, knowing how much trouble we were going to get in. Theresa, on the other hand, was laughing her ass off. This is where the phrase "Come on Chris, this is minor, really, we won't get caught". Well I was so devastated by crashing the motor home into the rain gutter that we kept on doing it for about another half hour. Well we did get caught, and we were grounded from each other once again.
We had so much fun. We would ride our bikes all summer long. I would get to her house early in the morning, help her with her chores (which meant that I got grounded from not doing my chores), then we would hop on our bikes and take the bike trail to anywhere we felt like going. We would spend the day at the movies. Walk around the shopping center. Stalk cute boys. We got lost in the woods, we would see who could jump the furthest over the creek and not get wet. We would sneak out of her house at night. Which was entertaining because she lived in a tri-level. So getting out of her room required going down 2 roofs, a 7ft fence, skirting the perimeter of her yard to climb the fence into her neighbors yard, avoid neighbors dogs. Climb yet another fence and then we would be home free. Only to do that in reverse order to get back to her room. We never did get caught for that. We only did that at her house, couldn't have gotten away with it at mine. We would take big moving boxes, get in them and use them as a sled down her stairs. Granted that almost always ended in a fat lip, but was most fun! She had an old water bed mattress. We would fill it up about 1/3 of air from the vacuum cleaner, then would place the mattress on the grass below the deck. One of us would sit on the end of the mattress so that the other end was a giant "bubble" behinds us. The other one would stand on the deck railing and jump on to the bubble and would launch the person on the end. That was soo much fun. Her older brother and his friend would launch us both at the same time. It was amazing we never broke any bones.
Our adventures came to a sudden end when we were 13. My family had move several states away. I would go visit her from time to time, and we would pick up right where we left off. Only by then we could both drive legally. We are now both 41. We both are married with kids now. I get to see her about once every 2-3 years. Those short days together are still just as magical for us now as it was over 30 years ago. A day doesn't go by that I don't miss that woman terribly. We talk for hours on the phone to the point where we are both hoarse from talking and laughing. She is my blood sister, my main confidant. She is my favorite part of childhood.
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