These are all in my head. I wish there was a Pensieve that could forever collect these memories and keep them intact. I already fear so many of our memories together are disappearing, especially the ones that I’ll never be able to confirm for accuracy.
“Everyone wants to be a Princess!” I shouted frustratedly. You and I immediately broke out laughing and covered our mouths. We were walking across the path that cut through the empty Highrise field on our weekly Fro Gro run. There was a girl sitting on a bench and she looked up at my loud outburst — and then seeing our subsequent uncontrollable giggles, she gave us a look of “ya’ll are crazy” but then she also said, “Yes, that’s true.” We continued laughing as we walked by, while also apologizing for the disruptive public proclamation. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but this memory so well characterizes a majority of our friendship. All the ridiculous things we’d say to each other, yet, it always made sense to us. It can be so hard to find someone on this level of understanding, and I can’t begin to describe how grateful/glad/[insert an emotional feeling] that we had these good times.
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Once again, we were walking down that path to Fro Gro and you definitely said something about how much you loved peanut butter. I can’t remember anything else about this memory other than knowing it happened and it was funny and this has stuck in my head.
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There was another time, we had finished buying groceries and were carrying our bags back to Harnwell. It was our regular routine to get to the store, put on our shopping game faces and then separate to different aisles before regrouping at the cashier lines. Generally, I probably went to the meat aisles and you went to the canned goods. By now, most of these memories are vague, but I do remember you always bought a gallon of milk, and then somehow would also end up with other heavy items. However, your arms were weak so we laughed a lot about your struggles with carrying the basket of heavy items — probably cans of beans and lentils, several pounds of apples, and the milk. It was a known fact that I had stronger arms and could carry more than you despite our respective body builds. Other than being shopping buddies to make the trips more fun, we also shared the burden of carrying groceries back.
This time though, as we were undoubtedly talking and joking on our way back, you dropped the milk. The milk carton cracked and milk was leaking out, creating a pool of white liquid on the concrete pavement. We were only just across the street from Fro Gro, so still some time to go before the dorms. It really was quite funny. You embarrassed easily; and well, it was in the middle of the street during the day, so people were definitely judging us. Anyways, milk wasn’t cheap and leaving a spilled gallon of milk on the ground would have been extremely wasteful. All the while laughing in surprise and embarrassment, we quickly reshuffled our bags and tried to isolate the leaking gallon in doubled up plastic bags. Grabbing the rest of your groceries, I shouldered the bags while you cradled the gallon of milk trying to avoid a full spillage out of the crack. We essentially booked it back to the dorms. It was one of our more eventful shopping trips.
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This next time involved our friend, Sam. It’s too bad that he doesn’t exactly remember this incident. Two deviations: it was at CVS and we weren’t buying groceries. I feel like it was a weekday, in the late afternoon, after classes, but not yet dark. CVS had a sale on toilet paper. Being the unofficial roommate who managed the communal items and expenses, I was always on the lookout for sales. It was going to be a great buy — we needed to restock on toilet paper, and I probably had a coupon even. You were in the room too, so I asked if you’d go on a toilet paper run with me. Naturally, you were up for a distraction from schoolwork. Fast forward maybe 20 minutes later, and we found ourselves at the self-check-out of CVS with like 6 megapacks of Charmin 12 rolls (or something ridiculous like that). You and I looked at each other suddenly in shock because we realized that there’s no way the two of us could just carry so much toilet paper across campus back to the dorm. Not only was it physically impossible given how bulky toilet paper was, but it would have been extremely embarrassing for other people (especially all those cool Penn students) to see us being so awkward in buying toilet paper in bulk for the sale.
Therefore, we ingeniously decided to call our trusty friend, Sam. He’s our most reliable friend, who also didn’t seem to mind that we were most often two silly girls doing weird, random things. Such as calling in the middle of an afternoon to ask if he’d come to CVS to help us carry a bunch of toilet paper back to the dorms. Luckily, being our awesome and reliable friend: he said yes and was able to come to our aid immediately. No matter how embarrassing something is, when the experience is shared with friends, it just becomes a fond and cherished anecdote.
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I’m diverging again, but I might as well memorialize this before it fades. As it is, the memory is already rather foggy. You and I were going to a cultural event, where our culture clubs (HKSA for me and the Irish Club for you) were setting up some booths. I honestly don’t remember what we were carrying, but whatever it was, there were several cardboard boxes of heavy food items. We cooked often for these events, so it’s pretty believable that we were bringing over a bunch of food of some sort. We didn’t make it very far from Harnwell, before it started to get super heavy. I think we had barely gotten over the bridge. It was all in fun; we could have made it, with frequent stops. It certainly wasn’t the first time we found ourselves struggling together trying to do seemingly basic tasks, so this had entertainment value. Nevertheless, I jokingly, like always, lamented “Oh wouldn’t it be so great if only we had handsome, strong boyfriends who could do all this laboring for us!” It was one of those classic inside jokes that we loved — being strong, independent females was our motto.
But in this case, a strong, handsome boy literally suddenly appeared. Franklin was walking from the other direction and greeted us in passing. He noticed that we were leaning our boxes against some tables, clearly taking a break, so stopped to say hello. With no shame, I immediately recruited his help to carry some of the boxes the rest of the way. It’s also not the first time that you and I were lucky to find a guy(s) to help us with something heavy. Franklin, being a nice guy, willingly helped us; let’s be real, only a really douchey guy would turn down a request from two lovely girls to help carry something. You and I were skilled at paying thanks with flattery and encouraging commentary: “Such strong arms you have! Oh, you’re so manly, what would we have done if not for your serendipitous appearance! Would you like some brownies? Thank you, you’re so handsome and strong! ” I can only laugh at our whimsical behaviors.
