Dealing with friend envy

Dealing with Friend Enzy.

You are all staring at the bag.

  There is a stunned silence around the room, no-one even likes the bag, the bag is just a bag, an ordinary bog-standard normal-sized bag, perfect for bog-standard, normal sized items such as… wallets, and keys, and a comb, and a pen, and –

 

   Oh no. No no. (Tittle tattle chirping laugh like an irritating bird) You couldn’t put a pen in there, it just might leak all over THE BAG. And oh no. No lipstick. No way. Imagine! Lipstick! On this bag! This Bag! This bag that cost a lot of money (chuckle chuckle chuckle) no, you couldn’t put a pen in this bag, in actual fact, take out the tissues, who carries tissues in a bag like this?!?! This isn’t the fucking toilet, love, tissues, dear me, dear oh dear, NO I’M AFRAID I CAN’T CARRY YOUR UMBRELLA FOR YOU IN THIS BAG, IF YOU WANTED TO TAKE YOUR UMBRELLA YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT YOUR OWN REALLY CHEAP BAG SO AS NOT TO STRETCH THE LEATHER OF THIS HOLY PIECE OF FABRIC WORTHY OF THE WORSHIP OF –

DON’T - touch the bag so tightly. Please. Just look at it. Just look.

  So there we all are. Staring at the bag. But it’s just a normal bag. BORING. Come on. Oh… come on! Yawn! I’M YAWNING! Look at me I’M YAWNING, someone please bang a drum because I AM BORED. HELLO?! I’M BORED! I’m sorry, are we ready to talk now, because the silence over this bag IS BORING ME!

 ……………….    And you look around the circle, that is looking at the bag, that is looking STRAIGHT AT YOU, and you start to laugh because you think it is a joke, but then you turn the laugh into a cough because you start to feel really awkward, as you realise the bag has this goading little lure between its little beaded eyes, and now you’re pretty freaked out, because it’s got this little annoying smile on it’s tan-coloured hide and it is really pissing you off, and suddenly - it opens its little buckled mouth like a sneering back-handed slap round the face and it whispers –

  

‘Everything you never had….                      Everything you never had….’

     I can still hear its voice. Warbling like an old lady ghost.

You do a double take and you look around at your friend’s faces who are staring with reverence at this idle piece of leather as though witnessing the birth of Christ himself and you’re thinking…..

Fuck.

         It’s just a bag.      

                               Gulp.  

Guys?!    Guys?!    Shall we….?!   Do you want to….?!  Shall we just pretend…..?!    How about we…?! Or maybe we should just – oh fuck it the bag is real and it is staring at you clean in the face, very much like the extra half a stone you pretend you can’t see when you stand on the scales, or for example the spot on the left side of your face you can only see if you turn your head.  

It’s fine, don’t even worry about it, it’s only a bag. (Sideways glance)

How much did it cost you?

‘It was a present actually, from my parents.’

Gulp. Why?

‘Because I cleaned the car for them.’

Gulp. What the fuck.

 ‘Please don’t squeeze it so tightly. You’ll ruin the leather.’

(Fuck. Was I doing that? Me? Really?)

‘Leather is expensive.’

How much did it cost them?

Tittle tittle TATTLE tittle FUCK KNOWS.

               SPEECHLESS IN THE PRESENCE OF THE BAG. And now you have become one of them.

Overdraft.

You’re in your overdraft.

There’s a massive zero and it’s hanging over your head like a stormy rain cloud of road rage.

MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY–

DEBT.

TAXES.

A whirlwind of thoughts collide inside your head like there is a disco, your own private utopia, selling the bag, that would mean stealing the bag, that would mean betraying a friend that would mean –

I am a good person, a very good person, a very very very good person –

THAT BAG IS PRACTICALLY WORTH MORE THAN MY CAR

Think of Africa, think of poor places, think of all those poor people –

I AM SO IGNORANT I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT COUNTRIES ARE POOR –

Amber? Are you ok? You look like you’re about to vomit? Either that or you’re holding in a particularly large fart –

I am fine, I am wonderful I am fine –

I WISH MY PARENTS WERE RICH

I am a good person, I am a very very good person, I have two arms, two legs, twos eyes two ears a nose, a mouth, I am lucky lucky lucky lucky I am –

IS IT WRONG THAT I ACTUALLY WANT TO DO A SHIT IN YOUR BAG?!

Amber? What do you think? Do you like it?!

OH GOD THE HOURS ARE LONG AND THE NIGHTS ARE LONGER AND ALL I WANT IS A NEW PAIR OF GLASSES –

Sell it, sell it, sell it, WE’RE ONLY ANIMALS AFTER ALL AND SURVIVAL IS ALWAYS THE KEY - sell the bag, buy a new coat, THROW IT IN THE FIRE burn the precious leather, GET A NEW JOB, win the fucking lottery, fake your own death, set your house alight and use the insurance money and buy a bag that you can actually PUT PENS IN, I LOVE CARRYING PENS IN MY BAG BUT I CAN’T AFFORD THE MOTHER-FUCKING PENS!

…………………………………And then there is the friend that is simply always so lovely!

Yes! She can cook, clean, make her own hair bands (all the great things that make women GREAT) and next thing you know she is baking everyone cakes!

Cakes cakes cakes ‘mmmmm’ – just look at the way the sugar coats her pretty little lips, (and there you are, dribbling chocolate down your front and pretending you hate them whilst in reality you are trying to secretly smuggle another into your REALLY CHEAP HANDBAG –

IT’S NOT AS IF YOU NEED ANOTHER! SHE’S EATEN 4 AND SHE’S STILL A SIZE EIGHT!

Vomit!? Vomit?! Surely she must be self-inducing?!

No! Don’t do it! You don’t want to smell!

AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT PRETENDING TO BE A FUCKING HOUSEWIFE!

(Choking and spluttering),

 “I think they’re a little dry love”

(DON’T SAY IT DON’T SAY IT, YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THE JEALOUS BITCH)

(Holding breath to encourage watering eyes)

 “DID YOU PUT NUTS IN THESE YOU SHOULD KNOW I’M ALLERGIC!”

(OH WHY DID YOU SAY IT, WHY DID YOU SAY IT?!)

Random friend – “no you’re not.”

(THEY’VE GOT YOU, THEY’VE GOT YOU, OWN UP, OWN UP!)

“Yes I am, CHRIST I’M DYING!”

Silence.

You continue chewing and swallow successfully.

                Random friend –“No. No…. You’re definitely not.”

(The silence continues.)

“ANYONE FOR A GAME OF PING-PONG?!”

  And you can see it happening well into adult-hood, your mother standing at the curtains watching the neighbours wheel in their new television and their smashingly expensive leather sofas, muttering under her breath ‘and I deserved that promotion….’

You used to think your mother wanted you to do well at school because she cared, but now you are older you witness it first hand –

  “Your child got 10 on a maths test, mine got four. Ok, maybe it is down to a bad gene pool and unhealthy upbringing. Or maybe your child is just BORING AS SHIT and my kid has a good enough sense of humour at aged nine to realise that Mr James is a blithering idiot who remains a virgin and wanks over his MAC BOOK PRO

IT’S JUST A COMPUTER!

YOU’RE SUCH A KNOB!!!!

It’s ok though. Stay strong. Play to your strengths. Strive to succeed. One day you’ll buy that bag, and you will fill it with pens - and lipstick, and tissues! - and you will take it all the way to SOME POOR COUNTRY YOU ARE TOO IGNORANT TO KNOW THE NAME OF, and you will say – ‘yes, run little child, now you have the means to gather your FOOD and hoard the crumbs and keep dead animals inside the confines of this expensive leather, because apparently it is so expensive it simply must be made to the MOST HIGHEST OF QUALITY to suit ALL OF YOUR NEEDS.