T. get in my pocket

So I gots me this friend. My longest standing friend with whom I have regular contact, in fact. On this, the most glorious 10th day of September, she turned 25, basically marking a decade of friendship. Tiffany Anne Driggs is one of my besties. Definitely my female bestie. We have been through thick and thin. She has held my hand through many a life change. I probably owe to her my sense of style, and most of my musical taste. Two years ago when my heart was shattered, she held it in the mountains while watching a scary movie. Whenever I am acting spiritually foolish, she isn't afraid to juice me. Some of the best advice I have ever received came from her blond head. In short, my future wife and her future husband are just going to have to understand--we will always be in each other's lives. Period.

When I was 15, I was as obsessed as the next kid with online chatting. I owe my ridiculously fast typing abilities to hours and hours of online chatting via AOL and yahoo. At one time, I even had an internet girlfriend. Jane1409. She was hot. So she said. Our song was "Truly Madly Deeply" by Savage Garden. She picked it, not me. Freaking losertown.

So my parents acquired the services of AOL. I met met many chat friends through that service. What my parents failed to realize, was that they were paying for every single minute I was talking to pedophiles, and I managed to rack up a rather hefty phone bill. Like, a few hundred dollars hefty. So much for AOL.

Shortly thereafter, we subscribed to some local service. My computer lacked Java capabilities, (whatever the hell that meant) and thus I could not enter chat rooms. That year I happened to go to EFY (a week long summer church youth program.) I met this guy from Cali. We kept in touch. Being a veritable chat-loser and having lost the crucial ability to meet new friends online, I asked him if hek new anybody cool with whom I could chat. He had a girl. Her name was Tiffany. She was into punk rock and SKA. I was into punk rock and SKA. It was a match made in heaven.

We basically fell in love via dial up internet. I was her punk rock Mormon dream boat, Punker71758, and she was my SKA princess. TiFfAnYsKa, to be precise. We even progressed to a telephone stage. We talked throughout the remainder of my last 2 high school years. We decided to meet. I bought a plane ticket to fly out there.

I suppose I should back track a bit. Our entire relationship was a SCAM. I told my parents that we met at EFY, hence they allowed me to purchase said ticket and weren't worried that I was flying into some pervert with a mustache's trap. She was always referred to as the "EFY girl."

So, I bought the ticket. I was destined to fly out Monday. Saturday, she calls me and lets me know that her father's heart was going to explode or some nonsense, and that I couldn't come. I was rather devestated. Mostly pist about the non-refundable $250 plane ticket.

Turns out, that was a blessing in disguise, as I was going to have my stake president's mission interview the day I returned from California, and Lucifer chose that particular week to tempt me with all manner of temptations of the flesh. So 2 teenagers cooped up together for a week with raging hormones was probably just a recipe for disaster.

A couple months later, she was randomly coming to Utah. So she decided to spend a night at my house. Again, under the false pretenses that she was "EFY girl." When I opened the door, both of us just awkwardly cracked up. It was one of the weirdest moments of my life. After a night of excitement, including a tour of everything to do in Nephi (which isn't much) including a snoogle session on the water tower, awkward tension had built. The next day, when I drove her to temple square, it had reached an awful crescendo, and we parted ways on a rather uncomfortable note. I really didn't talk to her much after that until my mission. Randomly, I wrote her an email. It was back on. I had such a ridiculous missionary crush on her. She sent me scandalous photos, which I used to make other elders jealous.

When I got home, she had just moved from Provo to Hawaii. There, we kept in contact for another year or so via occasional email. One day out of the blue, I received notice that she was going on a mission. While she was out, I wrote her ultra faithfully, and pretty much fell in love. We had this semi-scandalous email relationship while she was serving in the office, where we would write each other on pretty much a daily basis. She would send me pictures in which she thought she looked "hot." Which basically meant not uber greezy and with the extra mission weight hidden through clever poses and camera angles.

When she got home, we hung out and it was slightly awkward. I was going through a rather horrifying breakup, and my heart was dead. Then one night, my relationship was all over. I was going with some friends to watch a movie up the canyon, and I randomly called her, explaining my hour of need. She came, and we held hands in the mountains. For pretty much the first, and last time. Except for the one other time we laid on my love continent on my floor all night long after an Anchorman sesh, and tried to fall in love. Which didn't happen. As we stumbled out the door at 8 a.m. into the apartment complex courtyard, I greeted the new day (and everyone who was outside) with a rather loud, "That was aaaaammaaaaaazing."

The mountainous handhold was the end of our awkward tension, and we were besties ever after. And pretty much up until that point, my parents were still ignorant of our 8 year scam. One night, my family gathered at the ever fancy Red Lobster for a meal. I can't recall the occasion. As we sat there eating, I told my family that there was something that I had to tell them. Given the dramatic manner in which I brought it up, I am pretty sure they assumed that I was either going to drop a homosexual bomb on them, or perhaps that I had spread my seed without the bonds of wedlock.

It was neither.

I told them that my entire relationship with Tiffany had been built on a scam. She had never been to EFY. We were perverted internet lovers. My family formally embraced T a few weeks later by feeding her a Sunday dinner, and subjecting her to home movies. My father even went so far as to show her the golden restoration rifle. I had not even previously seen it.

So, here we are, 10 years later and both hella old in Provo. Many times we have attempted to fall in love, yet apparently the good Lord has other plans. It's like our freaking genitals just shut off when we are together. We just can't make it happen. But whatev. There are few people whom I love and care about like T. That, is most definitely not a scam.

Happy birthday love, and may your 26th year be full of golden rollerblading, Kukuburras, and fashionable, high waist jeans. And Fish.