Kara Papke

Today is Kara's birthday. Kara and I have been friends since kindergarten, which was when I started going to Indian Hills. That is how we met, we were in the same class for VBS, Awana, Sunday School, and Girls of Grace. Neither of us remember the first time we met or how we came to be so close, but whatever it was must have been strong. Our friendship still remains strong, honestly I don't know how someone who knows me so well could still want to be friends with me. We annoy each other sooo much, but we never fight about it. Kara and I hardly ever fight, if anything, it's an insignificant argument that I give up because I know she will win. (Kara's family and I have been telling her for a long time that she should become a lawyer because she is so good at arguing her point. She always wins. I feel sorry for any future boyfriend/husband of hers. He will never win.)

Our friendship is so weird, it's really hard to explain. A couple months ago, I was over at Kara's. I had spent the night and I woke up in the morning and was starving. (The Papke's are very small petite people, so they don't eat very much. They don't really take into consideration that not-so-petite people need to eat more than they do.) Anyway, I was sleeping on the floor, all wrapped up in like seven blankets. I got up, and quietly walked into their kitchen, I opened every cabinet and door in search of food. I finally found myself a nice stash of it, and had just turned around to head to the table when Kara randomly showed up. She looked at me and the stash of food in my hands and says with a smile on her face, "I love how you just rummage through my house like you live here or something." I swallowed the glob of Pop-tart that I had in my mouth and said, "What you talkin' 'bout fool? I do live here!" It was great. We both started laughing uncontrollably, and I somehow managed to drop my stash on the floor.

Later that day, Kara and I were sitting in her room watching Chicago Fire on her laptop (we're both obsessed with one of the male characters, Casey. I swear, if I didn't have a "no firefighter" rule, I would marry that man, but since I do have that rule, I willingly gave over my "Casey-dibs" to Kara.) Anyway, so Kara said, "You know what's really sad? I am going to be the creepy single 60 year-old cat lady that never finds a husband because I am dreaming over TV show characters. You're probably going to get married to a wonderful husband and have like 10 kids while I am stuck with cats." I laughed and said, "Kara, you are allergic to cats, you'll have to think of a different animal." She gave me a blank stare and said, "This is the part of this conversation where you tell me that there's someone out there for me, and that I'm not going to be 60 and still single!" I laughed again and said, "I wish I could say that, but I don't want to lie to you." Then she said, "You are a terrible person!" And then we both laughed for a very long time.

One night, it was like midnight, and Kara and I were up watching chick flick movies. She looked at me and said, "Your split ends are disgusting. Please let me trim your hair." I rolled my eyes and said, "I have a hair cut scheduled for three weeks from now, calm down." She refused to let me argue with her, so I said, "Fine, but if my mother finds out you cut my hair, both of us will be dead women." So, She trimmed my hair, and while she was doing it, she kept telling me about how rebellious she felt, and then we both laughed. But then, off the topic of rebelling, we started talking about what we were going to do on our senior trip. (In our High School youth group, at church, the sponsors take the seniors on a Senior Trip the summer before their senior year.) Every year, the Senior girls have done something somewhat rebellious on this trip. Like when Kara's older sister was a senior, all of the girls went to a salon and had the underpart of their hair dyed bright pink. We were brainstorming ideas, but it was hard because we don't want to copy any of the seniors before us. Our best idea was to get a tattoo in between two of our toes. This was more for humor than anything. My parents would KILL me if I ever got a tattoo, and, personally, I don't want something like that on my body. It was just funny to talk about it, our next idea was to get a fake tattoo to scare our parents. That was my favorite idea, especially since it didn't involve permanently marking my body.

Kara knows about every single thing that drives me crazy or that I hate. The ones she likes to torment me the most with are bubbles, nail files, and Febreeze. These are three things that I absolutely hate, they all drive me crazy. One night when I was at Kara's, we had been outside all day and had dirt all over us. So Janell (Kara's mom) made us take showers. Kara made me go first. The Papke's have one bathroom in their house (it's not even a house, it's a barn, but that is a very LONG story). While I was in the shower, Kara picked the lock on the door, opened it, and continuously sprayed almost an entire can of Febreeze in the bathroom, and then shut the door. I was so mad, but I got her back. Kara is VERY OCD about her bed, she rarely ever let's me touch her bed. So, I got in her bed, and messed up all of her sheets, blankets, and pillows, and when she opened the door to her room, I played a recording of a fart on her iPod. She freaked out. "Annastazia Rudolph Gregory! Get your smelly feet and your stanky fart out of my bed!" I waited about an hour, and then told her that I didn't really fart in her bed, she was still mad.

We do this kind of stuff to each other all of the time. Normal people would freak out and claim that good friends should avoid what makes the other annoyed or angry, but that is the difference between good friends and bestest amazingest greatest friends. I really don't know how to explain it other than a love-hate relationship. Long story short, we're bestest amazingest greatest friends. Happy Birthday, Kara!