My cousin Bethany and I were born 47 minutes apart. Same day, month, and year.
My uncle called my grandpa from the hospital: “You have a granddaughter!”
And then my dad called 47 minutes later: “You have a granddaughter!”
“I know,” my grandpa said.
“No, another one!”
Growing up, Bethany and I got along–very well, I’d say–but there were little things that separated us. She was really into the outdoors, and I was really into my hair. She was really into Jesus, and I was really into shock humor that she found appalling. She was really into being a smartypants knowitall first-grade-skipper, and I was really into being a bratty tattletale who didn’t care about anyone else. But we both liked New Kids on the Block and Pass the Pigs and Mastermind, and we could play in her basement for hours when she devised “pool tests” for my sister and me to challenge our skills (comma “lack of”) on her family’s billiards table, and she once helped me learn all of the books of the Old Testament during her church service so I could impress her Sunday School class afterward.
I decided to go to OSU as a high school senior after visiting Bethany there her freshman year, requested to live on her dorm floor the next year, and had a group of movie-watching, trivia-playing, Chinese-buffet-eating friends already waiting for me because she let me hang out with her. We lived together for a year in college in what basically amounts to a slum house with a broken stair we would’ve fallen through several times if the carpet covering it hadn’t been there to save us, a random working kitchen in one of the bedrooms, exposed power lines on the fire escape, neighbors who lit our dumpster on fire, and a parking lot where our cars were spraypainted. Soon after, Bethany moved to Russia for two years, figured out she wanted to be a veterinarian, and came home to go to vet school at OSU.
And . . . something was different. Maybe we had just grown up. Or maybe the distance had made us subconsciously realize how important family is. But where I used to see this smartypants knowitall dork kid, I saw a genuinely warm and caring person who could constantly make me laugh and knew everything about me because she’d been there for all of it. Now I look forward to seeing her on holidays and try to spend extra time with her and her mom before big family dinners, making their famous cloverleaf rolls and pumpkin rolls and exchanging gifts that only we would be amused by.
So when I only had time to see Bethany on Christmas and New Year’s Eve during the first week of my last visit home, I talked my best friend, Tracey, into driving us to see her in Portsmouth, Ohio, which is the halfway point between our hometown and Bethany’s new vet job in Kentucky. We were using some pretty crappy directions we’d printed out, got ourselves lost in downtown Portsmouth, and found ourselves driving across the Ohio River into Kentucky accidentally. U-turns are illegal in Ohio, but when we got to the end of the bridge, we decided we were technically in Kentucky, and Tracey swung her car around right there in the middle of the intersection. We cheered and high-fived and congratulated ourselves for being total badasses.
We had dinner with Bethany at a BBQ joint called Scioto Ribber (See what they did there? It’s a play on the Scioto River! Which I challenge any non-Ohioan to pronounce.) and then went for dessert at DQ (even though there was a cute local place right across the street), which is really the whole point of this post.
Bethany’s ridiculous faces as she enjoyed her Blizzard:
And Tracey’s ridiculous faces as she tongued the little nubbin on the top of her sundae and then found a dentures-shaped piece of chocolate in the cup:
Good times.
(nubbin!)
21 Comments
U-turns are totally legal in Kentucky because we are all badasses down here.
And of course I know how to pronounce Scioto, but I probably don’t quality for your challenge.
I’m under the impression that Kentucky has no laws at all because they know there’s no sense trying to control you rednecks.
You can probably pronounce Louisville correctly, too, so I’ll give you half credit.
I love that story. I hope Sarah and her cousin (born 4 days later) have a great relationship like that (minus the spraypainted cars and flaming dumpsters).
Also, I love that Tracey drives you everywhere. What an awesome friend!
Sarah and her cousin seem like they’re well on their way to being BFFs. I wish I had all the cute pictures of Bethany and me that you have of the two of them!
Tracey really is awesome, and not just for that. But she knows I feel guilty stealing my dad’s car so much, and I try to take care of her in other ways, ifyouknowwhatImean.
Can you believe I’ve never had Dairy Queen? True story.
DUDE. Let’s go to Jersey right now.
OR OMG, I just checked the website, and they’re putting one in at the Staten Island Ferry terminal. We’re going on opening day. I’m not joking.
YES! And then we can NOT get on the Ferry, while laughing at all the tourists and unfortunate people who actually live on Staten Island.
I love this story. It’s fun when your cousins become real people.
And now I really want a Blizzard.
I also remember the exact moment when my sister became a real person to me. I guess we have to be annoying kids before we can become what we do, but it sure is a shame.
I love me some DQ Nubbin. (DQ Nubbin’s sounds like a Fridays-like eatery.) And I totally know how to pronounce Scioto. But I can’t gloat because I did major time in Ohio.
D.Q. Nubbin is also the name of the sheriff in every spaghetti Western ever made.
Mmmmmm… spaghetti!
I love this post! I also went to an OSU!
Also, that ice cream looks so amazing.
Ah, yes, the OTHER OSU. I’m not a big sports fan, but I assume that HEADS EXPLODE when we play each other in football. Or wait, if you’re in the same conference, do you not play each other? I have no idea. I’m sticking with the exploded heads.
HEADS WOULD EXPLODE! I guess that’s good we don’t play each other because that would be a sad day. Or probably not.
What about all of the arm-extension photos of the three of us? Or did we just do that with my camera?
Dan is totally weirded out by what those chocolate dentures did to the shape of my face in that last photo. I look like a cartoonish old man!
Great, now I want a blizzard – but the only kind I’m likely to get is NOT the one I want. Hmph.
U turns are only illegal if a sign tells you so here. And if you get pulled over by a cop, it’s OK, you can just say, “But I didn’t see the sign!”
Not that that’s EVER happened to me before.
Um… you guys are adorable. This totally makes me want some soft serve.
But aren’t u-turns illegal pretty much everywhere? Except maybe Michigan. I hear strange things about Michigan.
Didn’t Benjamin Franklin have chocolate dentures?!
:)
I LOVE THIS POST! So well said :-) Also, I am now famous, as I was mentioned (featured, even) in my cousin’s blog that’s on the INTERNET! Love ya, darlin’