Happy Friendsgiving one and all!
It’s that time of year! The time for friends, family and beer!
I’m talking about Friendsgiving!
Friendsgiving is on the last Friday of November, and it’s a day where all your friends get together and have a feast of friendship as a way of saying thanks for putting up with all the bad parts of being friends, like them accidentally drinking all your beer or accidentally calling you at 2 in the morning for a ride home from the bar.
This little Friendsgiving story took place three years ago, on the Friendsgiving of 2021. This is the tale of Frosty’s Friendsgiving Frenzy!
The time? Friday, November 26, 2021. The place? Casa de Edwin. That’s Edwin’s house for those of you who don’t habla el Espanol!
All the usual crew was there drinking their usual brew. Edwin? Check. Edwin’s husband Greg? Check. Alex? Check. Juan? Check. Barty the Bartender? Check. Frosty? Check!
You probably noticed that I didn’t say “Slim? Check.” That’s because on November 26, 2020, my best friend Slim died from COVID-19, so he couldn’t make it this year, or any year for that matter.
You probably also noticed that this Friendsgiving was on November 26, 2021. Exactly one year after Slim’s untimely trip to the great all-you-can-eat buffet in the sky. Wherever Slim was, I’m sure he was eating. But he wasn’t eating with us.
This Friendsgiving was very important to us, because it was the first Friendsgiving without our friend. Things just weren’t going to be the same without Slim and his bad jokes. Nobody was going to say “Let’s talk turkey” a hundred times this year. Nobody was going to talk about gobbling down a plate full of turkey. Nobody was going to joke about being stuffed. Edwin might make a joke about eating birds, but it wouldn’t be the same. Slim had a billion bad jokes about turkey, and we’ll never hear them again.
I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying!
So there I was, having a drink and a think, when Edwin came up and put his arm around me. After I politely informed him that I respected his lifestyle but it wasn’t for me, Edwin clarified that he wasn’t coming onto me and was actually trying to comfort me.
“I miss him too, Frosty.”
Juan came over too.
“Hard to believe it’s been a whole year,” Juan said in perfect English because AJ said only Juan is allowed to write in broken English.
“Hey,” said Barry the Bartender, “remember when you guys had that stupid drinking contest at my bar and racked up that huge tab on Slim’s dime?”
Ah yes, the beginning (and the end!!) of my Sober Saga! The entire ordeal had started at Slim’s 29th Birthday Bonanza, when I challenged Edwin to a drinking contest and he CHEATED by having the last drink be vodka! If Slim didn’t have that party at Yellowz then I’d have never challenged Edwin to the drinking contest, he never would have cheated, I never would have lost, I never would have punched that college girl and burned down those Airbender temples, the judge would have never slapped me with that court order to be drunk all the time, and I never would have had the Sober Police assigned to hassle the holy hoo-ha out of me.
Before I could think about why I hadn’t seen the Sober Police in a while, Edwin chimed in.
“Haha, hey, what about that time Slim drove us to the Amish market and Frosty the Blowman here wandered off to the Ren Faire?”
You REALLY had to go there, Edwin? Of course you did, because you’re a jerk! Sure, I might have gotten a little lost looking for beer. Sure, I might have thought I went back in time. Sure, I might have declared myself a beer god. But it’s not MY fault that stupid Amish market didn’t sell beer! Why did Slim have to go to an Amish market anyway?
I wasn’t about to let Edwin of all people sully my honor, but I didn’t have a chance to defend myself because Juan spoke.
“Oh my god, remember that awful joke Slim would make every St. Patrick’s Day at Yellowz?”
Edwin and Bert Mike the Bartender both laughed, and so did I. I remembered that joke! It went “There’s so much green in here that they should call it ‘Greenz’ instead of ‘Yellowz’!”
My Slim impression went over great. But Alex just HAD to ruin it by bringing up the past!
“Hey, didn’t Frosty kill a man on St. Patty’s Day that one year?”
If by kill a man you meant SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD, then yes, I killed a man!
“It’s okay Frosty, I have it on good authority that man was working for the Worthington family, and he was part of a plot to-”
Unfortunately for Alex (and fortunately for everyone else!!) he didn’t get to finish his conspiracy theory, because Greg started with his own story.
“Aw, I just remembered that one Halloween where Slim and Frosty helped us do the haunted house.”
“Oh yeah,” Edwin said, “With the bad sushi. Blowman over here blew chunks all over some kid and got his ass beat. Slim had to take you home, right Frosty?”
Man (and woman, AJ says we don’t discriminate here at AJnet), Edwin never misses a chance to bring up a memory of me puking! It was Halloween, it was 2013, and it was a long long time ago in a time far far away!
“Hey Frosty, remember that time you hit me in the head with a beer bottle and sent me to the hospital?”
Jeez Slim, you’re NEVER going to let me live THAT one down!
I turned to Slim and let him have it.
“Yeah Slim, I know I know! Chantou left me heartbroken and I left you headbroken. You’re going to keep bringing it up until the day you die!”
Hey wait a minute…
“Frosty, who are you talking to?”
I blinked twice and Slim was gone, replaced by an arm war (I’m guessing you meant “armoire”… ~Ed.). Everyone was staring at me instead of the arm war armoire so I think it was safe to assume that Slim wasn’t really there. I think it was also safe to assume that I needed another beer.
As I made my way to the fridge, I reflected on the time I had spent with Slim all the memories we had made. That’s when I realized the truth.
We didn’t make those memories alone, we made them with our friends. Friends like Juan and Alex. Friends like Edwin. Even friends like Peter, who stopped talking to us for some reason.
Slim may have been gone, but my other friends weren’t (except for Peter!). They say that when a man loses a sense, the other senses get stronger. We lost one friend, but that meant the rest of our friendship would get stronger. My friends mean the world to me, because they ARE my world, and that unbreakable and unshakable bond is the true spirit of Friendsgiving!
Edwin’s voice hollered from the other room.
“I wanna put some bird in my mouth! Now enough moping, let’s eat!”
As we sat down at the table and prepared for our Friendsgiving feast, I thought for just a moment I saw Slim standing there, smiling.
“Let’s talk turkey.”
I laughed and picked up a spoonful of stuffing.
“Get stuffed, fat boy!”
I threw the spoonful of stuffing at Slim, missing him completely. Which in hindsight was probably because Slim wasn’t really there. Instead, my stuffing bomb hit Alex square in the face.
“Frosty you damn drunk idiot-”
Before Alex could go off on another one of his kooky conspiracy theories about that John K. Worthington guy, I picked up a handful of mashed potatoes.
“Did somebody say FOOD FIGHT!” I screamed as I threw the potatoes, hitting Juan on the chest.
As it turned out, nobody had said “Food fight” and nobody was amused by my joke. Greg stood up and firmly told me to leave. But before I could get up, I was broadsided by a handful of cranberry sauce from Juan’s direction. Then came the corn, courtesy of Barty the Bartender. Before I knew it, there was more food on the walls than the table, the very same table that Greg was now hiding underneath while crying. I guess he REALLY missed Slim!
As I picked up the turkey and prepared to feed Edwin that bird he said he wanted, I thought about my old friend, and I smiled.
“Hey Edwin, let’s talk turkey motherfucker!”