Happy Birthday, Brooke!

The childhood best friend. If you didn't have one, you wanted one. I was fortunate enough to have Brooke. Brooke and I, we were pretty different. She was a city girl (ok, ok, a Royal Center townie), an only child. I grew up on a farm with two brothers. In kindergarten, her favorite song was "Bat Out of Hell." I had Disney soundtrack cassettes playing on repeat. She had cool matching outfits and a perm. I was lucky if I brushed my hair and was known to go to school with my shirt inside out. Nevertheless, we defied societal norms and became best friends.

Well, today is  Brooke's 22nd birthday. In her honor, I am going to list 22 of my favorite memories that include her:

22. Picking flowers and then walking around the neighborhood trying to sell them as "carpet potpourri."

21. Taking wilted, brown, leftover "carpet potpourri" and giving it to teachers on the last day of school.

20. Walking around the neighborhood selling cleaning services. And massages. 1 hour = $1. (Where were our parents?!)

19. Writing love notes from one grandparent to the other ("Tommy Boy" and "Doris Darling").

18. Cancun!!!!!

17. Inviting all of the kids on the bus over to watch us perform Beauty and the Beast. Sadly, no one showed. I, of course, always insisted upon being Beauty. Brooke was a good sport.

16. Selling seedless grapes. We picked a few from the vine by my house, split them and half and ripped out the seeds, and soaked them in a bucket of water we found in the sandbox until our first customer (Brooke's mom) showed up to buy some. (Note: Diane, I saw you casually dump them under the car as you got in.)

15. Giving Brooke her first bloody nose. I was doing a cartwheel and my foot hit her nose. She 

bled all over her dog, but thanked me for it.

14. Getting snowed in for 5 days at Brooke's house. I'm sure her parents were thrilled about this one. I still can't tell, to this day, if it helped or hurt our friendship.

13. Endless chat room sessions with people like "SpeedyBoy." (How do I still remember this?)

12. Going to Outback and having, between the two of us, a $40 meal. On her mom's credit card. We both got in trouble for that one.

11. We also both got in trouble when we offered to mow the yard and then stopped half way through. 

10. Designing her first tattoo. It was a beautiful, and I drew it on a napkin at Grindstone Charlie's. 

9. Ace of Base and Spice Girls. 'Nuff Said. Oh, and All Saints.

8. Watching The Osbournes on MTV. Actually, anything on MTV. Brooke was so cool. She had a TV in her room with satellite hooked up. I wasn't even allowed to watch TV at home during the week, so I had to sneak peeks there.

7. Jet skiing with her dad and his..."hairy" friend. Thankfully, Brooke rode with him. The guy had a back like a gorilla, and poor girl, always the good sport, had to put her arms around him. But then we went to Indiana Beach in our cut offs and bikini tops (the epitome of trashiness, also something we'd always wanted to do) and had ice cream comes, which made it all better. 

6. 4 Wheeling. We totaled the 4 wheeler and her dad had to buy it.

5.  BB guns. Brooke's dad (a sheriff) confiscated two and brought them home for us. 

4. Deciding to be rebels and sneaking a taste of rum the summer after we graduated. Now mom and dad, I think this was a good thing, as we tried cooking rum and it was so bad it deterred me from any future underage drinking. 

3. Various trips to Lafayette and Kokomo. Fond memories include: racing a diesel truck, taking off our clothes so we could tan while waiting on highway construction during a particularly hot trip in the farm truck, and calling information to get a store's number, to get a boy worker's number. (Totally for Brooke. I didn't like boys until I was like, 19.)

2. Chasing her 7 year-old cousin Austin down the stairs and, in mimicking him, jumping the last 5 steps. Problem was, I was about a foot taller than him, and clothelined the doorway.

And my number one memory from a childhood with Brooke and (apparently) no parental supervision:

1. Brooke's funeral. When we were like 10, we (actually, probably just me) decided it would be funny if we faked Brooke's funeral and then made her parents come to it. So she laid across the couch, surrounded by pictures and flowers we'd found around the house, with Titanic music playing in the background. I went and got her unknowing parents from the other room and led them in, by the hands, saying, "I'm so sorry about your daughter." Her mom started screaming that we were morbid and made us clean it up. I'm pretty sure I saw a smirk on her dad's face, though.

Happy Birthday, Brooklyn:)