My Friend, My Eye, and I

My Friend, My Eye, and I

I took dance with my best friend who just so happened to live right next to me, and my friend's mom would drive us to dance every day. The car always smelled of stinky feet because all of us would kick our shoes off whenever we got in the car after running around all day. It was always really hot in the car too, because we were packed in there like sardines.



But, before we went to dance, we would always go through a drive-thru to fuel are busybodies. It ranged from Wendy's, to Taco Bell, to McDonald's. The car ride was about 30 minutes long and since this was before every 10-year-old had an iPhone, we had to entertain ourselves.

Our placement in the car was important; my friend and I would sit in the very back of her mom's big black Tahoe. Then my sister and my friend’s brother would sit in the middle, and her oldest brother would sit in the front seat. We sat in these exact seats every week, which looking back now, it might have been better to not sit next to her.

Although she is my absolute best friends, some of her bad qualities include her clumsiness and her lack of spatial awareness. Every time we were in the car I would get bumped in the head or elbowed in the rib just because she had no concepts of other people’s personal space. We would be messing around and she would reach to get something and somehow hurt me in the process. Without fail I would get hurt anytime I was sitting next to her.

On this particular day, nothing was different, we went through the McDonalds drive-thru and we each got a happy meal. Although that was deceiving, because I did not stay happy for long. As the car ride progressed my friend told me she wanted to show me a magic trick. I love magic so of course, I went along thinking she would make a coin disappear or something, but oh, was I wrong. 

The first thing she did was grab a straw out of her drink and then she brought it up to my right eye so I could see all the way through the other end as if I was looking down the end of a barrel.


And before I had time to close my eye or ask her what she was doing, it was too late. By then the straw had already hit me in the eye and I was screaming in pain, holding my eye, wondering if I would ever be able to see out of it. So many things were running through my head that I couldn't process what had just happened and that is I just got poked in the eye with a straw by my best friend.