There are some people that you consider friends and one day you wonder to yourself- “why on earth am I friends with this person?”

I have never once thought that with my best friend.

It is probably because we pretty much the same person.  We always joke that we are going to someday write a book called “Separated by hair color”- it is going to be amazing.

We share a brain.  There aren’t many people who would find feeding refried beans to a taco bell dog pez dispenser nearly as hysterical as we did.  How many people would have zero issue doing silly walks and/or singing at the top of your lungs through wal-mart?  Who else would go on a road trip only to end up hanging out at the Econo Lodge watching really bad Lifetime movies ( I like how I say that implying that there are really good Lifetime movies)?  We are also similarly accident prone- she once broke her foot really badly while dancing in her kitchen and I once knocked myself unconscious with a concussion thanks to a particularly forceful sneeze and a badly placed dresser.

But this story?  This story probably is the best picture of how perfect we are for each other.  And if one of us mentions an Episcopalian Emergency the other will immediately laugh.  Good times.

Here goes.

One summer when we were both in St. Louis (a rarity) we took up the strange habit of driving all over the city/county in the middle of the night.  I’m not totally sure how it started but probably was due to both of us living with our parents and just wanting to get out for the least amount of money possible.  When I say all over the city, I mean all over the city.  It wasn’t unheard of for us to see the chow mein shops of downtown St. Louis at the beginning of the night and the Bush Wildlife Refuge all the way out in St. Charles a couple of hours later.  It was insane.

While driving we would talk about pretty much anything.  One particularly deep conversation involved trying to decide if Jesus wore boxers or briefs.  It is sort of amazing that theologians are not knocking our door down wanting our opinions on the matter.

Anyways- one night we were driving along and ended up on this back back back woods road (it probably isn’t that desolate as I remember but it was the middle of the night so it seems really Scooby Doo-ish in my head) where there wasn’t a car or a street light in sight.

There we were just minding our own business when all of a sudden appears a set of headlights behind us.  We didn’t think anything of it at first, I mean why would we?  It’s just a car.  No big deal.

Except the car kept following us.  We would pass house after house (not very close together) and the car just kept following.  After about a mile or so, the extremely overactive imaginations in the car took over.  This car was following us to find a secluded spot where the nutcase inside was going to run us into a ditch and then hatchet murder us.  No, they were following to try and get a good look at our license plate to report us for driving down that street in the middle of the night for no reason because they had nothing better to do.  Better yet, the person driving was really lonely, saw us drive by their house, got in their car and started following in the hopes that we would lead them to some awesome party and want to be their friend forever.

I think in the end we decided upon the hatchet murder scenario as the most likely.  Never once did we consider that it might just be someone driving down the same street as us.  This scenario never even came into play.

So of course now that we’ve decided that the person driving was indeed a hatchet murderer we grew even more wary with each surpassed driveway.  I considered jotting down my last will and testament on the back of a lottery scratcher.  I didn’t even have time to consider that with no way to notarize it, the will would be invalid and really what did I have to leave of any value anyway? MY GOD WHY WAS THIS PERSON FOLLOWING US?!?!?!?!?!?!

And then they turned.

Into the Episcopalian church parking lot.

What on earth is happening that is so important that someone needs to go to the Episcopalian church at two in the morning?

Episcopalian emergency- the only thing that makes sense.