Dear Elli,
Yesterday was my best friend's baby shower. Michelle and I have been friends since third grade. Third grade was 30 years ago. God I'm getting old.
Anyway, this girl is my ride or die. I love her. I would absolutely help her hide a body, no questions asked. Well I might have a few questions, but I would still help her hide the body.
So now she's gonna have a baby, which is just about the coolest thing ever. And given she has been my ride or die best friend for 30 years, I of course insisted on taking an integral role with her baby shower.
I'm not a baby shower kind of girl. I can throw a party for sure. A total banger. I usually just buy a shit ton of alcohol, some paper plates, grill some burgers, and the people come. My sole decoration for our fish fry every year is my car parked in the middle of the front yard with "Odom Fish Fry" painted across the windows and balloons on the side view mirrors. That's it. And I find it to be impossibly hilarious. Every year.
All the cute details that go with baby showers make me anxious. And Michelle is totally a cute detailed party kind of girl. Food, decorations, themes, place settings, all that stuff. Cute and detailed. My heart is actually beating faster just typing the words "cute" and "detailed". However, if I am willing to hide a body for this girl, I can certainly overcome my inferiority complex with cuteness and do a baby shower right?
So Michelle planned the whole thing and told me exactly what to do, which is fantastic. And very smart on her part. She provided a list of specific items to be acquired, and I acquired them very successfully. I have a strong aptitude for acquiring things from a list.
Except one thing. She at one point suggested I should acquire bouquets of sunflowers. In my head, I was picturing a bouquet of 7-foot tall flowers as big as my head and I started to panic because I don't know how to acquire such a thing. I asked her where I could possibly buy 7-foot tall flowers, and she calmly explained that she wanted small sunflowers from the grocery store floral department. Then she marked that item off my list and bought them herself because she knew I was going to have a panic attack about it.
So I showed up at Michelle's house the night before the baby shower with my acquisitions, and to begin food prep. My primary job was to slice and dice a large variety of fruits and vegetables. I am not an accomplished slicer dicer of fruits and vegetables, but I can generally get the job done. First was a canteloupe, which was fine. I can cut a canteloupe into fruit salad sized chunks. Fruit in general is pretty easy stuff. But I could feel Michelle watching me closely. There was a lot of pressure to perform as I moved through the list of things to slice and dice.
She finally handed me my nemesis, an onion. I hate onions. I love them, but I also hate them. I have no idea what the proper way to dice an onion even is. The skin never comes off easily. I don't know which direction to cut into the damn thing to produce the best dicing result. I always make it work, but the process is never pretty. And Michelle was eyeballing me. First she said, "You know, those pieces need to be smaller." Then she said, "You're slicing that in a really weird way." And then, "I think we might just need to start over with a new onion." She finally took the onion from me and did it herself. I was relieved. I'm not cut out for this shit. Cutting onions with an audience is way too stressful for me.
I managed most of my tasks fairly well. I think I was moderately helpful under supervision. And Michelle is infinitely patient with me. She always has been. Although that goes both ways, let me tell you.
Michelle has no concept of punctuality. None. I have no idea how she survives without any concept of time, but she does. She even thrives in this constant state of chaos. So she told me to come back over to get ready for the baby shower at 9AM the next morning. The shower starts at 11AM. Well, that's a bit tight but okay.
You and I got there at 9AM. You counted M&Ms for the jar where people guess how many M&Ms are in the jar and the winner gets a prize. There were 510, and you did a fantastic job. I would've just guessed and moved on with my life, but you actually counted 510 individual M&Ms. You're insane.
Meanwhile, Michelle and I worked at hyper speed to make the veggie pizza and pigs in a blanket (a fancy cute detailed kind of pigs in a blanket), mac & cheese (also fancy), and several other miscellaneous things.
Michelle handed me a platter for the veggie pizza and then went upstairs to get dressed. It became quickly apparent that there was too much veggie pizza to fit in a single layer on this platter. So I placed a single layer of veggie pizza on the platter and then paced around the kitchen in near physical pain about whether or not I should stack a second layer of veggie pizza on the platter. I mean, I wouldn't hesitate to do it for my own party. But I don't know if it's acceptable to cute detailed people like Michelle because it's maybe not a pretty way to put veggie pizza on a platter. Oh my God! So stressful. I can make multi-million dollar decisions in five minutes at work without hesitation, but I am stricken with fear over how to place veggie pizza on a platter. I am not cut out for this shit.
So at 10:35, the pigs in a blanket went into the oven. They take 30 minutes to bake. The baby shower starts in 25 minutes. And the baby shower is taking place five minutes from her house at a park. Michelle is accustomed to these time crunch situations. This is what she does. I am not. I was a total mess.
We loaded everything into the car. Michelle's husband Tony actually did most of the loading. Because he knew that there was no way in hell she would have time to load anything but herself in the car if we had a single solitary hope of even arriving at the park before our guests, let alone getting anything actually set up for those guests. I'm glad she married that guy. He's a freaking saint.
And we made it. We arrived at the park at 10:45AM. The pigs in a blanket were still in the oven at the house. Tony went back to the house to get them, along with 14 other things we forgot. I told you he's a saint. And Michelle and you and I raced around the park putting tablecloths on picnic tables and hanging banners and making cute place settings and bouquets of sunflowers into centerpieces. I've never put a centerpiece on a table in my life until yesterday. Never.
I placed the last piece of tape to hang the banner as the first guests arrived.
The baby shower was great! It was a truly awesome day. As far as I could tell, everyone had fun. Michelle was beautiful and happy and glowing like a pregnant lady should, talking and laughing with all of her close friends. That made me happy. She deserves to be happy.
And you had fun helping with the little kids. And yes, I saw you pushing two kids at a time on the swing set. You don't always think I see those things you do to be kind, but I do. You watched over the little ones all day, and I marveled more than once at the fact that I have a big kid now. Not just any big kid, but a big kid who I know can be trusted to look out for little kids. I was proud of you today.
I was satisfied and happy and very tired by the end of the day. By the time we got in the car to drive home, I was more exhausted than I've been in years. We got home, and I immediately fell asleep on the couch for two hours. I don't even remember the last time I took a nap. Then I slept for another eleven hours last night. I actually considered the possibility that I might be ill because of all this sleeping, but I'm fine. I blame the mental anguish over the slicing and dicing, and the veggie pizza platter, and the adrenaline rush of setting up for a baby shower at a park in exactly 15 minutes. And of course the fact that I'm simply not mentally or emotionally cut out for baby shower planning and execution. I'm much better suited for hiding bodies.
But I loved every freaking minute of it, though. Every. Freaking. Minute. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. And I'm so grateful that Michelle allowed me to help, even though I am 100% the least qualified of all her friends for such a position.
I love you, and I love Michelle. She's gonna be an amazing mom, and I can't wait to watch her do it.
Mom
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