CHAPTER 30
CRUNCHIES

Welcome to the 30th chapter and the 200th paragraph of this little doodad.
So I am thinking of renaming Pretend to Crunchy…‘why?’ you might ask? Simple, he has turned into one. As you will recall we defined ‘Crunchies’ in an earlier chapter, I call them ‘Hippies’. I’ll still be his friend though, in fact for a while I contemplated becoming a hippie, but I was going to be cool about it and do it for the drugs and protests you know, “change the world”. He does it for some kind of biomedical thing, lure in more “clients” (street hooker)…not as cool.
He had a moment today on the phone where he forgot that I will not be coming back here in the fall. It was kind of sad really, he was talking about his little…’soul patch’ and how he is going to grow it out. Well actually at first he told me he shaved part of his face today because he told me he would shave. I have been deceived, the particular part that I wanted him to shave was his nasty chin. He said I liked it and wanted to run my fingers through it, I told him I hoped I never could run my fingers through it. He began to say, “When you come back…” and then he stopped himself and got all sad and then said, “But you won’t be coming back.” He was going to say that when I come back I would be able to braid his sickening little soul patch. He is going to meet my parents tomorrow (along with other friends too, don’t worry I didn’t leave you out of anything important) and I told him that I needed to warn my mother that he was a crunchy. He asked if she didn’t like facial hair and I told him that she hated it, that’s why my dad has had a mustache for all of my life. He didn’t really pick up on the sarcasm right away, but when he finally did I told him she didn’t mind facial hair but I hated it. Apparently that isn’t good enough. We also decided that his grandfather and I would get along well because neither of us likes facial hair. The only kind of guys under the age of 30 with mustaches or any facial hair, but especially mustaches, is a Chester, and you should probably keep your children and also women of any age away from him.
So I prepared the rest of Crunchy’s goodbye/birthday gift. I got some Hemp lotion (it’s so hot right now) and hemp chap stick for his little Hippie excursion and I went and bought the BIG oatmeal pies to use as stuffing, because we both love oatmeal pies. Despite what anyone thinks, normal sized oatmeal pies are crap! The only way to go is to buy the big American dream oatmeal pies. The ones where when you eat one of them it’s like eating two of the regular and it contributes massively (pardon the pun) to your obesity. And now back to the chapter: When I was buying them Sweet Pea was with me and she said, “When did you fall in love with him?” The question was immediately processed through my brain as absurd and I answered, “I’m not,” or something along those lines. But it got me thinking, why am I making such a big deal out of this farewell/birthday gift? I’m not going to give you any answers, not because it’s a lifelong dream of mine to be facetious but because I don’t know why. Something has happened in the dynamics of the friendship relationship between Crunchy and I and I don’t know what it is. We are closer than we were last year, which happens with time, I mean look at Sweet Pea and I…we can fight about anything and everything, but we also know that one little fight doesn’t ruin the friendship (if she were a guy and a little bit taller we are talking marriage candidate, no joke…okay maybe a little one). All I can tell you is that I am not in love with Crunchy, but there is something there, some kind of bond. Maybe it is like he told me once, that we are ‘soul people’ and we can’t imagine life before each other and we don’t want to imagine life without each other. Or maybe it can be boiled down to the fact that when I think of the perfect present for someone I must get it for them. Like the stuffed animal (a rock-chuck) that I bought for Sweet Pea. It was creepy to say the least, but it was the perfect gift (despite what she claims).
I think I’ll go smoke some marijuana and make my protest signs.