'Fremenies'

I have a confession to make.
It’s not a huge confession, I’m not admitting to stealing my girlfriends’ underwear (it’s not me sweetie, honest… I love you?), nor am I here to reveal that it is, in fact, I who has been siphoning gas from the cars in my neighborhood (but really… if we get to $4 a gallon, I shall publicly retract this denial). No. No my confession is far less serious, yet far more embarrassing for me to make.

But first, a little background.

The aforementioned girlfriend, while no doubt on her way to a store to purchase replenishment underwear (seriously honey… what’s with that? We should investigate. It’s not me, I swear), was on the phone with a friend of hers. For the sake of protecting identities (would you want to be associated with me?) we’ll use initials instead of names. Here’s the code:

The mindless poet = J
The mindless poet’s girlfriend = A
The mindless poet’s girlfriend's friend = S
The mindless poet’s girlfriend's friend's 5 (soon to be 6) year old daughter = K

Here’s how the conversation went (at least, how I remember it going after 'A' recounted it to me).

S: So how is J?
A: He’s good
K: (From the back of the car) What happened to J?
S: He was rear-ended
K: What’s rear-ended?
S: Someone drove his car into the back of him
K: Who drove into him?
S: His arch-rival
K: What’s an arch-rival?
S: It’s like a nemesis
K: What’s a nemesis?
S: Well he’s like a frenemy
K: Oh ok, I know what a frenemy is.

Here, is my confession. I had never heard the word ‘frenemy’ before. A 5 (soon to be 6) year old child possesses a word in her vocabulary that is totally foreign to me. I would have won this contest if I were head to head with her and it were a best of 3, because I would have been able to slam down definitions for both ‘arch-rival’ and ‘nemesis’ and crushed her into submission before she’d even put a point on the board. But ‘frenemy’ would have left me stumped - thinking for a little, working it out in my head, then delicately reaching for the buzzer to offer a hastily improvised meaning.

There. Now I feel a little better. Catharsis really is good for the soul!
This conversation though got me to thinking something. Why do we pretend to be friends with people while secretly despising them and wishing them harm? Children don’t do this, and when we’re children we know exactly who in our classes like us. While it may initially hurt us to hear the words ‘you’re a poo head and I hate you’, it at least lets us know where we stand.

Matthew and I are officially ‘frenemies’. We talk to each other about non-work related things. We’ve even gone to lunch together at the local prison (they have a catering program, 3 course meal for $1.47. Don’t judge me), and we’ve hugged. Well I hugged him. It was late, we were still at work, and I wanted to see how he would react (his reaction was ‘get off me you homo! Help!’) At the same time however, we both clearly share a contempt for the other that transcends normality, and both cheer like fools when the other is absent from work.

I have decided to take ‘Operation Make Matthew Go Mad’ in a new and exciting direction. I shall be milking my injuries and totally making up new and interesting symptoms, both in an effort to attempt to squeeze some kind of ‘guilt’ emotion from his cold, cold heart; and to turn the tide of public opinion within cell block 6 against him. There’s been a little too much ‘how’s your car Matthew’ and a little less ‘how’s your head J’ for my liking, so today I’ll be turning the dial. If anyone out there has a neck brace, please let me know and I’ll pay for the postage. I’ll be wearing odd shoes, telling people that I have to leave early to shovel snow, asking where the ringing noises are coming from, trying to ‘fix’ the printer so that no paper can escape, and using words that I’ve never used before.

Like ‘frenemy’.