One of my best friends from High School passed away this week; I didn’t even know she was ill, wish I had.
She was one of a kind, and we got up to lots of Lucy & Ethel misadventures alone or with our other friends; miraculously, we somehow always avoided the trouble we should’ve gotten in to.
This story is so her. We roomed together at LA Tech, and she had a Saturday job working in the office of the local (livestock) Sale Barn. I opened the door to our dorm room Saturday afternoon, and there was my friend with a real, live piglet.
“Isn’t he cute? I named him Frederick.”
Turns out, one of the young men at the Sale Barn decided to show his interest by gifting her with her very own baby pig. Turning down gifts from admirers was not her style. Since we weren’t even supposed to have goldfish in our dorm room, much less livestock, I was concerned, but was told it would be fine.
So she left me with Frederick to babysit. He loved the corn chips I fed him, but went insane if you turned on the stereo, running in circles and squealing…well, like a pig. Went to supper, and when I returned Frederick had pee’d and poo’d over every square inch of our room, and was sitting on my Economics book grunting at me. After a heart-to-heart talk between friends, he left the next day for the Animal Husbandry department.
Rest in peace, old friend.
