Is This You? Terrible vs. Awful Friends

I tell my friends, “I am a terrible friend.” That sets the tone and hopefully excuses any misstep I will undoubtedly make during a friendship. But. Yes, a very friendly “but.” I am that friend that will come and pull you out of the muck and mud that life ever heaps upon your head or soul. Be it any hour on that 24-hour clock that drives our lives.

Being a terrible friend has lots of wonderful benefits and is not what you think. Like an awful friend. I do not want to be an awful friend. Awful friends carry a sack full of knives that they tend to leave in your back at the drop of a bite of gossip. Not anything like a terrible friend. We terribles will never laugh at you. We will only laugh with you. We are the stopping-off point and putting-to-bed point of whispers. I have a ton of terrible friends. I love them all.

If you have never seen the best friend joke, let me tell you about it. It tells you in colorful lettering and background laughter that, “I am the friend that you cannot call for bail money because I am sitting right beside you.” “I am the friend that remembers your birthday but never the year!” We all want to be that friend, but more than that, we—okay, I—work endlessly to be that friend. Here’s a story.

I seem to be, at this point in time, on the outs with a good/terrible friend. One that was with me the night my most favorite hat, Gertrude, was absconded with by a wayward female who thought she would just put Gertrude in her car and make my hat hers. Yes, there was beer involved. We were so young. Young enough to know that a hat was an important part of who I was. Haha.

That was more than a lifetime ago. I still remember my friend seeing Gertrude in the girl’s car, and we snatched her back from the grip of a life without me and my travels. That my friends, that act of taking back Gertrude from the jaws of another sealed a terribly wonderful friendship with my friend. For whatever reason there is a bump in our friendship. The best thing is that pretty soon, I will send a card with a silly cow, horse, or donkey that probably will say, “I am still that ass that you love to see ahead of you on the trail of life.”  I know. I know. Terrible prose. In the end, though, that is all it usually takes with your terrible friends. A jab, a cookie, a hug. Oh, and never talk politics. 

Long-distance friends sometimes become just acquaintances. You will think of them from time to time. Sometimes, you may be making an egg salad sandwich, and the smell with remind you of a time when you had a few extra eggs, way back when they were only a dollar a dozen, and for some crazy reason, you dropped one after another so you could watch the dog try to lick ‘em up off the linoleum. You smile at the memory. Whatever the memory is that you have with that long-distance friend, you remember and keep making that sandwich. When it is a terrible friend, you stop everything you are doing and call that friend to say, “Just calling to ‘egg’ you on!” Next thing you know, an hour or two has gone by, and you are still not done talking with your terrible friend.

I may have a few more than a few decades under my belt of life. The only thing that decades do is make my list of terrible friends longer. We started to gather our lifelong “terribles” a lifetime ago.  I got a call from a man the other day who has found himself in a “transitional” house. He fell and hurt his back and is now just getting better enough to maybe go home in a few weeks. Hospital, care facility, and finally, this last step to get back home. I think he realized that his circle of friends has some amazing terrible friends that he never knew existed. His neighbors bring him his mail and tell him about the birds and cats and happenings in his yard. Keeping his spirits up and whooping and yahooing him back to good health. See, terrible friends not only help create all those memories, they also make sure we all have a lifeguard, that is protecting and helping us through all the times of our lives. How cool it is to look at a friend and see how terrible they are for us?!

Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers; you can email her at [email protected].

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