But my friend brings out the worst in me. Maybe it's her privileged rich girl background paired with her strongly idealistic streak, but she just gets under my skin. Sometimes it's tough to like a pampered, Vegan, politically correct person. Whatever the case, I say terrible, terrible things to her.
The worst thing I've said to her -- and possibly to anyone, ever -- is, "Your foster child is going to burn down your house. With you in it." We weren't even in a fight. I just said that and smiled. The smile was meant to convey that I was kidding, but I'm pretty sure it just came off serial killer-ish.
Now, I'm not going to excuse that comment. But maybe if I explain the conversation that preceded the comment, you won't hate me quite as much. Right now, it's probably not looking good, though, is it?
Here's the story. My friend came to visit me in my office while I was shopping on Amazon. I said, "Oops, you caught me shopping at work. It's an emergency; I've been procrastinating on buying my nephew a Christmas gift and now I HAVE to do it to get it there on time." To which my friend replied, "Is he starving? Living in a shack?" (O
bviously not. I'm not sending food, I'm sending a dinosaur. One that farts, incidentally.) Seeing my confusion, my friend explained, "Well, it's just material things. They're kind of icky and I don't like them." Since that didn't really merit an answer, I just stared and she continued."Maybe you should send him a picture. Of starving kids in Darfur." I stared, incredulously, and asked "To a five-year-old? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't understand." To which my friend said, "When I have a child -- no, wait, a foster child -- I'm not going to give him toys as presents. I'm going to teach him about how poor people live."
And that's when The Comment happened. Even my husband, who really, really dislikes this person, was shocked. Please consider the comments section here a poll. You can vote: Am I going to hell, Purgatory, or just North Dakota?
