Nothing Beats a Best Friend

I saw this on Facebook: A friend is someone who’ll raise bail money to get you out of jail. A best friend will be sitting next to you in the cell.

From my experience, men can go for years without venturing from their homes for anything other than beer or a football game. If it can be brought into their homes via post, dropped from a helicopter or delivered on horseback, they’ll live happily in their caves.

Women, on the other hand, need outside contact. More than that, we crave friends. But nothing in this world beats a best friend. A best friend knows you for all your charms and warts and pretends you have more charm than warts.

I’ve been fortunate to have many friends. I’ve also been blessed to have a best friend. In fact, people call my friend, Michele, the “Ethel” to my Lucy. For good reason.

Back in 2009, as part of a story asking for supplies to send to our deployed troops, Michele accompanied me to Philadelphia to photograph my interviews with Scott Palmer of the Philadelphia Phillies as well as Derek Boyko of the Eagles. Michele loves baseball and could identify the players, while I’m the same way with football. We figured we had all our bases covered, forgive the pun.

My Matt and Michele’s husband, Alex, were concerned. We are not known to have uneventful outings. Driving to the city together qualified as an all out Code Blue.

So Matt bought a Garmin GPS system, and patiently explained to the two of us how it worked. Sadly, I thought she was paying attention and she thought I was. Neither of us remembered a word he said. Still, we plugged our destination into the GPS, and were off.

It probably won't surprise you when I tell you that we hadn’t programmed the Garmin correctly; thankfully, Michele figured that out early on. Had we followed the directions the snooty computer lady kept screaming at us, we would have unintentionally turned into Thelma and Louise. We were certain it would have launched us off a bridge and into the Schuylkill River.

A trip that would normally take a little over an hour took us three hours, but we finally made it to the NovaCare center to speak with Boyko.

As we walked up the steps to the complex, Michele suggested I take a picture of me standing in front of the building. That is, after “that guy” got out of the way. In her estimation, he was taking entirely too much time going down the stairs, and Michele began to get annoyed. She whispered, “How long does it take to walk down a stupid set of stairs?”

And that’s when it hit me - I knew who he was. I stuck my hand out and said, “Mr. McNabb? My name is Tamara Kells. The crazy blond isn’t with me.”

Yup, he was THE Donovan McNabb, who at the time, was the quarterback for the Eagles. He was very kind, and we had a nice conversation.  

We finished our business with the Eagles, grabbed some lunch and went in search of the Phillies’ offices and promptly got lost again. If you’re familiar with the sports complexes, you’ll understand why that’s such an amazing feat – they’re both within blocks of each other. However, the loud-mouthed GPS lady kept barking directions, which confused us. We knew we’d plugged in the wrong address once. We didn’t think we’d done it again.

But we had.

We made it home in one piece, much to the surprise of our family and friends.

Like most women, Michele and I can talk on the phone for hours, sometimes several times in one day. Men, if they bother to call, will usually say a few words and grunt several times, then hang up. But according to our spouses, we speak our own language – crazy.

Matt says our conversations, at the beginning, are like watching a tennis match. At first, you follow the game, and, like tennis, the back and forth make sense. Then, one of us remembers something, and out pops a subject that has nothing to do with what we were talking about. The two of us know what happened, but people listening to us claim it’s like trying to understand every conversation going on at a busy restaurant.

We both run large homeschool groups, and sometimes, when we’re at a function, I’ll be speaking to someone but can’t for the life of me remember their name. Michele knows the look, and comes over to say hello, then mentions the person’s name at least twice. She also has a look that I’m familiar with that lets me know she needs a reason to walk away. I don’t think that many people notice these “looks,” as they’re brief and subtle. But to us, they’re like bullhorns.

Best friends don’t come around every day and when they do, they’re worth more than their weight in gold. A BFF is the keeper of your secrets, has been given the password to your Facebook account (even if she can’t remember it), worries when you’re sick, understands that if you don’t call there’s a reason, will tell you that you’re wrong or that something you did was stupid (but if anyone else does, watch out).

There have been times when I didn’t have a best friend. I’ve certainly never had one like Michele. I have to tell you, though, that I much prefer having a best friend to not. I hope that you, too, are blessed with a friend who knows and loves you, even if your warts outnumber your charms. Like my beloved mother- in-law, Gretchen always says, “Everyone should have a Michele.”

She’s never wrong.

You can follow Lucy on her Facebook page, or keep up with her on her blog.