A little after 1 pm yesterday, I stopped into the Starbucks in Kenneth Hahn Plaza in the Willowbrook/Compton area to get a chai and check my email. I was sitting there, sipping my chai, listening to the mellow sounds of Duke Ellington playing in the background and clicking through random work emails. Thinking too much, as I'm prone to do sometimes. And, just when I was starting to think that my day really sucked, that I should start a new blog entitled worst + day + ever = my life -- just as I thought I might actually cry (yes, it was a day like that), two teenagers came in the door. One of them was talking very loudly into one of those walkie-talkie type phones.
"Why you ain’t got no boyfriend?"
"What?" came back through the phone speaker.
He rephrased his question, "I said, you got a man? Yes or no?" His friend laughed and poked him good-naturedly in the arm as they strolled across the Starbucks.
They both took a seat the table right behind me. The back and forth dialogue with the girl continued. She eventually asked him what he was doing and he replied, "I ain’t doin’ nothing, just trying to come to your house!" -- to which his friend added, "Stop it, that's my ex, man!"
They had the courtesy to end the conversation. "Sorry, miss."
I'll admit, they seemed contrite so I replied, "It's ok, but you know when you talk into those things, everybody can hear what you're saying. Some stuff should be private, you know?"
"Yeah, sorry," said the taller of the two boys, "but you hear how he was tryin' to get with my girl? What kind of friend is that?"
They started laughing back and forth and then approached the counter to ask for some water.
As they chatted with the barista, I got to thinking again about my day and it's suckitude. But, in case my thoughts got too maudlin, my teenage friends approached my table with their water, interrupting me once more.
"Hey, you got internet access on that laptop?"
I nodded yes so they continued, "Can we check our MySpaces?"
I asked the question you are certainly wondering...and if you're not, you should be.
"Aren't y'all supposed to be at school? Where do you go, Centennial?"
They exchanged glances and then the taller one spoke, "Yeah, but we're on lunch."
Now in my mind, I was thinking, yeah, right. Y'all aren't on lunch. It's too late for lunch. But what the heck...maybe they'd break my laptop in two by spilling their waters on it, thereby taking my day to the next level of worst.day.ever.
They told me their names were AJ and DJ and they've been friends for a whole grand three months. Both were sixteen, which explained the girl-crazy attitude.
Neither one had ever used a laptop before. They couldn't figure out how to use the little red mouse dot in the center so I had to show them how to work it. My
desktop popped up and they wanted to know "Who are those white dudes in the picture?""Oh, that's Depeche Mode." They'd never heard of them but they fixated on the date in the photo, 1988.
"You were alive in 1988? You ever meet those dudes?"
Um, no.
Now that I felt seriously like a granny, I watched them access their MySpace pages where they each had several hundred friends. Mostly teenage girls in various provocative poses. Girls that left them comments like the utterly profound, "IM JUS STOPPIN BY TO SHOW U SUM LOVE ON YO PAGE. DO THE SAME".
"Do you actually know all these girls?" I asked
Of course, they didn't and when they asked me how many friends I had on my MySpace page, I had to tell them, "Not many but that's because I only accept friend requests from people I actually know." This concept baffled them and I found myself having to explain to them that if it's not someone that I believe would come rescue me if I had a car crash, someone that I actually know and can count on, then they aren't my friend. They thought this was completely dumb.
I started to think that maybe my day didn't suck as much as I thought. After all, I know that someone isn't truly a friend if they only leave flirtatious messages on my MySpace page or send me emails or call me on a walkie talkie phone. I know that someone that can just delete me off of a "friends" page or, without a second thought, delete my email address out of their contacts, is not really a friend.
AJ and DJ laughed as they said that a friend is, "A girl that looks good and gives us money." I guess that's why AJ was trying to get with DJ's ex...maybe they don't really have a concept of true friendship.
They hung out for awhile longer, bugging me and the barista (who finally gave them two free frappucinos.)
The girl started calling again and I had to get back to my emails so I told them I'd see them later. They wandered off to hang out in the outdoor seating area and I thought about the various friends I've had throughout my life and whether I've been a good friend.
I think I have been...and at the very least, I never tried to hook up with a friend's ex. That counts for something, right?
