Silly String

So, STRING is pretty awesome, amiright? I had forgotten all about my fondness for colored string until tonight when I babysat my nieces and nephew. Annabelle had just gotten home from a birthday party and we were looking through all her goodies. I only JUST remembered I still have stick-on earrings that I took out of the pile. Yup, I stole from a child. Anyway, one of the best things among all the trinkets were four pieces of string. Packaged as a "friedship bracelet kit", I nearly shrieked. Annabelle was all "What's this string for?!" And I was all "DUH. FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS!"

I sat and quick knotted up four bracelets for the girls and their Best Friends. It was some of my best work, too. I didn't have a safety pin to pin the end to my jeans, so I had Annabelle sit and hold while I showed her how to make a bracelet. It was all very wholesome. Do you guys remember making friendship bracelets? It took up DAYS of my adolescence. There were times when I'd have a 20-string bracelet going. The problem was, kids are fickle. I'd start making the bracelet for Emily, but would end up giving it to Jenny because Emily and I were no longer friends because she wrote a note saying SHE liked Eric. Or, uh, you know...some other super heinous crime against tweenagers.

Anyway...I came home from babysitting and dug through my old jewelry and lo and behold, found an old friendship bracelet. Who is it from? Unknown. Apparently, it was super important at some time, though. I looked at it and was like wow...

This thing is super ugly.

Is there anything grosser than wet string, worn for days and weeks until it gets so gnarly that it falls off in the bath? Puke. They are always so bright and intricate when you are making them. But afterwards? It's just, like, super gross string that starts to smell after about a week.

The one I found appears to be lavender, blue, white and pink. Clearly this so-called FRIEND knew nothing about me because this lady [points indignantly at myself] does not like lavender. Or blue. Plus, it was only BRAIDED. The ones I whipped together this afternoon were the kinds that are just one single strand of knots in color blocks. WAY COOLER than just a braid. Gee, thanks "friend" for taking 2 minutes out of your busy day of being my friend to braid this excuse for a bracelet...in colors I don't even LIKE.

I don't want to sound petty. I'm sure I was very impressed that some person gave me a friendship bracelet. They were the original Kabbalah bracelet...proof that you had friends who didn't want to invest TOO much in gifts. Everyone who was anyone had at least one of them on at any given time. Unless you didn't have friends. Loser.

Hopefully Annabelle and Eve's friends like the bracelets I made. I wonder if they'll love them SO much that in twenty years, they'll dig the germ infestations out of some old jewelry box and be like "Wow, gross. Where did this come from?" It came from your best friend, 6-year-old girl I've never heard of.