Fight Club, part 2

Now the second fight I've had with Jennifer is pretty damn embarrassing. I write about it maybe to get rid of the shame (you know, talk it out) or maybe just to have a good laugh and embarrass Jenny while I'm at it.

We were probably about 12 years old or so. Maybe even older - but God, I hope not. Growing up in Hawaii you get to have a long childhood. We played a lot. We played outdoors and often played "pretend."

This one day we were out in my backyard and we were pretending we were rich and famous or whatever. We were going on a trip and had to rent a car apparently. Well, the car was a red Porsche 911 Carrera turbo or it could have been a red Ferrari. Those were our favorite cars at the time (the Porsche is still is my favorite actually).

I guess in our pretend world they only had one car to rent us and we didn't have the imagination to pretend there was another damn car on the lot.

Wouldn't you know it? We both wanted to drive the pretend Porsche! And when I say drive I mean run around the yard holding a pretend steering wheel and shit, while the other person ran along at your side. Doesn't that sound like fun? Wouldn't you want to drive? Well, we both wanted to do it and we kept pushing each other out of the pretend driver's seat. The pushing got kind of fierce. I think at one point one of us said, "Screw this!" and did try to "drive" a "new" car and let the other person have the "old" car. But that just pissed the other one of us off big time. Because now it was a matter of principle! You can't just make shit up to have your way! We have one car and I'm driving it! So the pushing continued. And the pushing led to the great dramatic cat fight scene - long hair flying every which way, arms whipping around, nails out, aiming towards the face trying to do some serious damage, lots of howling and spitting. I'm sure it was a sight to behold. In all this mess I managed to tear one Jenny's gigantic hoop earrings out (remember this was the '80s people, the earrings were big). We stopped suddenly...I thought I had torn her earlobe off! I peered at her, trying to look at her ear to make sure it was still there. From what I could tell, it was. But Jenny suddenly flipped out! She screamed and raked my face with her nails. Of course, I started crying. I was already tired of this stupid fight over nothing, and now she had taken it to another level - the face. I was sure I was permanently disfigured and I wasn't going to take this shit anymore! I was going to tell my mom! As I was running up the stairs to my house Jennifer yelled after me in the demented voice of an enraged 12 year old, "Go run to your mommy like you always do!" Ugh. Now that hurts! More than getting raked in the face! So, I didn't tell my mommy, I ran to my room and locked my door and wrote in my diary (which I never before bothered to write in) how much I hated Jennifer. All the while crying my eyeballs out, because I was sure our friendship was over. It was all very cathartic actually.

Eventually, Jennifer and my mom came to my door and invited me to come out. My mom made us apologize to each other. "What were you guys fighting about anyways?" She wondered. Jennifer and I looked at each other and in that instance were best buddies again, because there was no way we were going to tell anyone what we were fighting about. It was our special secret. Although, thanks to Jen, I had to go to school with a big scratch across my face and everyone asking about what had happened. "Oh, nothing," I'd say as Jenny and I would exchange knowing glances. Yes, we knew we were idiots. But we wanted to keep that just between friends.