sarahcentric

This is Andrew, and I’ve known this Mother F–er for 12 years. You may remember him from the transcript of the most important conversation that ever took place in the history of the world.

We are not best friends. We are a scientific phenomena.
Allow me to explain.

Remember Click-Clacks? They were two bizarrely heavy marble-ball things, connected by a string and attached to a handle. At first glance, they looked like the most boring, old-fashioned toy ever in the bottom of your toy box. And good luck trying to figure out how they even got into your toy box.

Then some kid in your neighborhood who revealed Click-Clacks’ great secret to you. (If she was a girl, she had three pigtails and always carried a purse. If he was a boy, he preferred judo to little league, and collected every mythical creature figurine he could get his hands on…and he may have carried a purse.) Instead of playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with you, they grabbed the Click-Clacks by the handle and started that magical momentum which made the two marble-ball things swing and crash into each other. Above and below. Over and over. Faster and faster.
Click-Clack
Click-Clack
Click-Clack
Of course the instant you heard that sonic boom, you snatched your toy back from that weak child and got to Click-Clacking. Within minutes you were under its spell and couldn’t possibly tear yourself away until your poor mother ran into the room, at the edge of madness “Alright!! If you wanna play with that thing… outside, now!”

Before you know it, you’ve ditched all of your awesome toys and friends to stand in the backyard alone with your new vice. You cannot resist. One Toy to Rule them all.

This is what it feels like to be friends with Andrew.

Sometimes Andrew and I are the two marble-balls attached to a string, completely in sync and out of touch with the rest of the world. When we’re in our own little Click-Clack universe, we don’t have the normal social checks that all of the other toys in the box have. Anything that pops into our individual minds can be a major topic of conversation. Anything. Literally.

For instance, my love of jokes based on hypothetical situations reaches ridiculous heights when I’m with Andrew.

Sarah: Ok what would you do…
Andrew: Go…
Sarah: Ok, so we’re just sitting here right?
Andrew: Right…
Sarah:…And then you look out the window and all of a sudden there is just, like, a Dragon!
Andrew: A dragon?
Sarah: Yeah…a Chinese f—ing Dragon just like, in the sky, flying around Queens!
Andrew: Pffff, I’d freak out!
Sarah: Totally!!

This conversation actually took place and we were both stone sober. I am aware on some level that it is absolute nonsense, but that day I was crying because I was laughing so hard. When Andrew and I are Click-Clacking, we each think the other is Bill Cosby.

Andrew’s humor in the Click-Clack zone takes on a very cerebral, de-constructed air, heavily relying on props. For example, years ago Andrew found a stopwatch in his bedroom. He carried that thing around for two days and secretly timed conversations we had. At the end of some normal exchange, Andrew would pull the stopwatch out and announce our time. “That decision on where to eat lunch took 23 seconds.” The other night on video iChat, Andrew started our conference call with a detailed inventory of everything on his computer desk.

-Deodorant
-Coffee cup top
-Chapstick
-Twigs left over from some grapes.

“Great..thank you, Andrew.”

Andrew didn’t tell me then there was also a measuring tape on his desk. Instead he saved that for a big reveal later, sneaking the tape into the edge of the screen.

“Andrew, what the hell is that?”
“Just so you have a frame of reference, Sarah… this is how big my head is.”

When we are in the zone, Andrew and I are both the marble-balls and the annoying kid clacking away, connected and obsessed. But once in a while our awareness extends beyond the toy all the way to the Mom ready to jump out the window if she hears that sound once more. One of us at some point, can step out of our conversation, (and I use that term very loosely), and finally ask what in the hell is going on here.

For example, Andrew and I caught “Peggy Sue Got Married” 5 freaking years ago some weekend afternoon on TV. This is an excellent movie for many reasons, but not for the bizarre reason Andrew and I love it. In one brief scene, Joan Allen’s character checks Peggy Sue with one quick line, “Hey! Peggy Sue!” That’s it. That the whole line. The whole “joke”. But of course Andrew and I have made a meal of this thing, checking each other with that line for the past 5 years. “Hey! Peggy Sue!!” The other day I finally snapped, “Andrew!! That’s not even funny and no one else in the world even knows what we’re talking about!” Andrew agreed, just as confounded by our primordial connection, “I know, I know…well, what else are we supposed to say?!”

Andrew and I have been at the bottom of the same toybox for the last 12 years. We went to college in upstate NY, and made our way through New York City together. Somehow though, Andrew got the notion a couple of years ago that it wasn’t required by Laws of the Universe that we live in the same place. I’m posing embarrassing hypotheticals to anyone who will listen in New York, and he’s taking clever inventories in Florida now. All Click, no Clack.

But in 9 days, I’m fixin to bust that state wide open with a visit to the the other half of my brain for a long weekend. It’s time to make some serious noise!

Cover your ears, Florida.