BFFAABYMBFOC*

Amy and I were best friends in high school. She was slightly on the weird side of normal, and maybe I was on the normal side of weird. (I say maybe because I don't really like to declare myself as "weird." I don't like to declare myself as anything. I'm Sandra, and if you don't know what that means, then you're not paying attention. But this is another issue.)

My relationship with Amy was peppered with lots of in-jokes, as all my best relationships are. Sometimes I get my in-jokes mixed up and I make them with the wrong friend. I made a tea kettle roar at my friend Josh this weekend and received a blank stare. I said, "If you were Amy, you would have thought that was hilarious." With Amy and I, even having in-jokes was an in-joke, along with "John's Bluff," cookin' beans, and making tea kettles roar.

But the real focus of this aside-riddled entry is BFFAA, one of our most oft-used in-jokes which stands for "Best Friends Forever And Always." It's something that elementary school girls sign at the bottoms of letters to their bosom companions. But Amy and I didn't sign "BFFAA." We signed things like "BFFAABYLWIMATKR"** or "BFFAAETYWTTLWIMATKR"***. We made up new ones every time, and put a little star at the end which matched up to the footnote where we would explain what all those letters meant. The challenge was to guess what the letters stood for. Mostly, the statements were so ridiculous that we could never get the whole thing. But sometimes, we could. Whether that's a testament to how close we were, how similar we were, or just how sad we were, I don't know.

Amy and I still talk quite a bit, mostly on the internet. When I lived in Boone, we'd go weeks without seeing each other until we happened to both be bored on the same night, and then we'd get together. We say we are "friends of convenience" now, and though it may seem kinda sad, it works for us. But we'll send cards sometimes, and we always sign off with our version of BFFAA. And it still makes us laugh to do it, even though it's been years since we came up with it, just like all our little in-jokes, like "John's bluff," cookin' beans, and making tea kettles roar.


*Best Friends Forever And Always Because You're My Best Friend Of Convenience

**Best Friends Forever And Always Because You Laugh When I Make A Tea Kettle Roar

***Best Friends Forever And Always Even Though You Weren't There To Laugh When I Made A Tea Kettle Roar