Girlfriends

This past Tuesday I made a b-line for Blockbuster because it was the release date of The Sex and the City movie, which I had not yet seen. I think I may be the only person left on the planet who hadn't seen it. Well, except for my BFF Julie, who, like me, often finds herself with the option of going to the theater alone or waiting for the movie to come out on DVD. As I didn't make it to the theater alone to see it; I've been counting down the days to September 23 for a while now.

So Tuesday afternoon I turned out all the lights and shut the curtains tight in our living room and hunkered down for the long haul.

I loved it! I thought it was fantastic and gave a little more closure than the ending of the show did. Although, I have heard rumors of a sequel. I'm not yet sure how I feel about that.

Though I thought the movie was brilliant and it did manage to entertain me for the entire two and half hours of its running time, it left me with a feeling of melancholy. The whole time I was watching the film, I kept thinking about my girlfriends and how much I missed them. In particular my friends from college, Jenn, Shannon and Whitney. The four of us always related to the Sex and the City characters; as I'm sure many women do given the success of the series. But each of us seemed to have characteristics that matched a particular character. We were like the SATC girls in their twenties.

There is a particular place in the film that I thought for sure whoever wrote the screenplay must have been spying on us at some point.

The scene where Charlotte craps her pants was classic and not to far from real life in my group of friends.

**names and location are left out of the following in order to protect the innocent**

We had taken one of our many road trips and were at our desired location for the night. We had inflated an air mattress in the middle of the floor (a staple to any trip we took) and we were getting ready to tuck in for the night. It had been a long day on the road and we were exhausted. This particular trip we had decided to document on video. There were always multiple cameras at our fingertips, but we had never documented any of our shenanigans on tape. What better time than the present? Each night we sat together and propped the camera up on something semi-stable in order to give a "wrap-up" of the day's events. That night was no different and we all piled onto the air mattress to tell the camera how happy we were that the driving was over and we were stationary for the moment.

We were passing around a bag of chex mix (also ever present among the four of us) and sipping on our night caps while we talked over each other and spewed our thoughts for the camera. It was like a poorly filmed episode of The View. We wrapped it up and there was a moment of silence as one of us crossed the room to turn off the camera. And then it happened. The fart heard round the world.

(I need to interject here to say that I regularly embarrass myself with my constant gaseous bowels. I am the gassiest person I know, and they had all gotten used to me at that point. But it always gives me a little thrill of pleasure when someone else looses control and lets one rip.)

Everyone froze and for a second I know they thought it was me because the perpetrator was seated right next to me. But I knew better. That fart came from the most prim and proper of us. From the one who would rather die than have us know that she ever had gas. Our own personal Charlotte. Her face turned about twenty different shades of red. My eyes grew wide and I gapped at her, but it didn't take long for me to collect myself. "DID YOU JUST FART?!" And then we lost it. She hid her face, as if the camera hadn't caught everything that had just happened and I collapsed in laughter. We all collapsed in laughter, but I think I enjoyed it the most. Our friend was human after all, and she still is human, though she hasn't let us know it since that night.

Watching the movie and remembering all the fun we've had together really made me want to pick up the phone and call everyone. I haven't called anyone yet, because there is no such thing as a short call with these girls. We so seldom see each other or even get to talk these days that when we do; we spend a lot of time catching up. Hopefully there will be a girls weekend planned soon. I know I'm desperately in need of one.

These three women gave me something I had never had before. Usually my limit was one girlfriend at a time. I never traveled in a pack. Until I met them. They taught me so much about life and friendship and I still learn from them on a regular basis. I'm forever grateful for their love and their presence in my life.