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| Quick, I need my best friend or a relative of his to sleep in this thing . |
Mark had a younger brother who was a bout a year older than me and
while we were never hostile towards each other we never really
clicked either. We had such vastly different interests and
personalities that we could never get a friendship off the ground.
When I turned 11 I took my birthday money to the Army Surplus store
and bought an orange pup tent that smelled foul and was a pain to
assemble but I loved it dearly. I went home and put it up and
discovered that the 'two man' descriptor may have been a bit
generous, even 'two boy' may have been pushing the boundaries of
truth in advertizing. To be fair there are all kinds of sizes of men
and this tent may have been sized in a region where great warriors
are only 4' 11”; I am speaking, of course, of France. I brought out
my sleeping bag and got a fire pit ready and then ran over to see if
Mark wanted to come and see my tent. He had the nerve to not even be
home, not even a little bit. I was so very excited that I asked in
Justin could sleep over in stead he decided to and his parents said
it was okay so he loaded up a sleeping bag and walk across the street
with me. When we got to my house we went in to get some snacks and
other provender and my mom sleuthed out that the boy with me was in
fact not Mark but Justin and asked why he was over. I told he the
situation and she protested that Justin was not my friend. I lied
that he was kind of my friend and that since Mark was gone and a tent
needed some breaking in that this beggar was not going to choose and
Justin was just going to have to do. We had this conversation with
Justin standing awkwardly near the door holding a wadded up sleeping
bag. We ended up getting out there and having a pretty good time
telling the same old jokes and telling some possibly exaggerated
stories. Justin went home in the morning and even though we went to
the same Junior high and High school we never did anything together,
actually we barely even acknowledged each other in the halls at
school. I guess it's like they say one night as a replacement best
friend does not a bosom buddy make. You know? Sometimes the most made
up at the spur of the moment aphorisms are the most applicable.
