The other night my niece and I decided to make friendship bracelets. I used to be a friendship-bracelet-making-fool back in the day. But that was like twenty years ago, and my mind is failing me in my old age, so we had to get a kit complete with directions and little wheels and stuff. Wheels? In my day we used to just loop the string through a safety pin, pin it to our acid washed jeans right above the knee, and start knotting away. But to prove to my niece how hip I was, I tried it the new school way.

Dude, after spending like half an hour measuring out our string, attaching it to the wheel according to the pattern, and reading the instructions thrice over, we were so over it. But we sucked it up and worked it out. Unfortunately, because I decided I wanted to be all emo and have an all-black friendship bracelet, it started looking more like a plain black rope. Or shoelace. It was not cute. Then I was really over it.

So we took it back to the old school. My memory was still sketchy but I just did a quick YouTube search on "how to make friendship bracelets" and we were good to go. I was pretty happy with how it was coming along, until...



Not too shabby, but what's that sticking out the side?



Doh! I ran out of string before I could finish the bracelet.

Bro: That's your friendship bracelet? Looks more like an enemy bracelet.

Jerk.

So, I started a new bracelet and cut the string twice as long. I worked on that thing in the car on the way to the beach, on the couch while watching Secret Life of Bees, in the chair at the dentist's office. What am I? Ten? For some reason I was determined to have me a friendship bracelet! Maybe I'm having a midlife crisis.

P.S. I got a new friendship bracelet today. From an actual friend! She's my age. And our kids are totally embarrassed by us.

P.P.S. I'm totally having a friendship-bracelet-making party with my nieces this weekend. For real. Don't be jealous.

Labels: crazy talk