My Friend Laura

So my friends have been relatively fruitful when it comes to blogging. Most of us are stay at home moms in some capacity, and I think this is the only way we can manage to stay in touch with the outside world and something perhaps resembling sane. Right!

I recently found out my friend Laura has a blog. In order to make myself worthy of a link on her blog, I thought I would add a small post about her.

I met Laura just shy of my 21st birthday when I started working at the bank. I remember going in to interview and seeing the pretty girl in the corner who was so well-dressed and poised. The voice inside my head kind of snorted and said "Uh-huh. If those are the people they hire, you are never going to get this job." Which was a bad attitude, because I was pretty desperate for employment at the time.

So anyway, imagine my surprise when Laura and I became instant friends. She just seemed so cool I wasn't sure I could relate, but I soon found out I totally could. She put a sign up outside encouraging customers to honk for my 21st birthday, and spearheaded the outlandish decorating of my desk. We spent many a night after the bank lobby was closed sharing dessert from Chili's -- which I believe we still hold the world record in consumption with speed for eating (timed by our husbands at less than a minute from plate drop to licking the last bit of chocolate off) -- and making up words to the insanely bad Christmas Muzak. Just in case they post that stuff on their website, I'm not even making a link. That's how much I love anyone who reads my blog. It's. that. bad. Oh, the other thing we were doing is realizing that we could play six degrees of separation and, like, never find the same connection twice between us. We are eerily connected and it's so weird we didn't meet sooner.

Laura soon had hooked me into scrapbooking (I don't know if I've ever properly thanked her for this by the way) and inappropriately salacious conversations about boys. We had so much fun working together until the stupid bank transferred her to another branch. And then she trained me for her old job by phone because the stupid bank had no training program, or the personnel qualified to do it, in place. It was a good time.

Now, we are both moms instead of tellers, and the job demands are much different. It's not possible to get your training over the phone because, as has been pointed out to me, kids don't come with manuals (stop laughing, MOM. I know you're the one who told me they don't, and I still don't appreciate the chuckle in your voice when you said it ;) ). We don't get to Chili's for dessert any more because the chance to consume 2500 calories each in a sitting is not outweighed by the consequence of a toddler or two loose in public. But we still talk every now and again when we have a minute, and it's like no time has passed at all in many respects. She and her family support Alan and me every year by coming out to Guns N Hoses, and they politely ignore my swearing during the game (I'm trying to tone it down for the children's sake). Plus, she has some absolutely adorable children and a fun husband who tried to teach us the most confusing card game ever (but also let us play electronic darts once). What more do you need in a friend?