The Diary of Ashley Spencer: Don’t Leave Me, Khrista

One of my major BFFs, Khrista, a girl who’s seen me wet my pants after pretending to be a sheep on live radio, is moving to Colorado for a big girl job. Good for her, right? Totes. But what about me? What am I going to do? Write a post about her and guilt her into staying? You guys think that will work? I’ll try it!

I met Khrista in Ms. Bishop's first grade class. We attended a small Catholic school, and there weren’t many friend options. Pickings were especially thin in our class. We had the option of befriending the girl whose nose was stuffed with green frozen boogers all winter long, or the six stinky boys. Naturally, Khrista and I became friends (and later even let frozen boogs into our exclusive clique of two).

We played Pick the Bush at recess, which really was Pick and Then Jump Into the Bush and Destroy It. We spent afternoons at Khrista’s house eating sour cream and onion chips with ketchup, because her mom made sure we always had a nutritious snack waiting. Khrista helped me with my math homework because I’m allergic to numbers. I could always count on her to give me the answers. She had a cat named Toby who I would meow to, trying to engage him in conversation. I knew Khrista and I were real friends when I felt at ease occupying her toilet for extended periods of time. Her mom once asked me if I was sick and needed to go home after I disappeared for several hours in the bathroom.

One particular afternoon, we decided to make a fort in the alley behind her house. We decided we needed to furnish our fort, so we went door to door and asked people for household objects they no longer needed. Our script went something like this:

Me: Hello!
Khrista: How do you do, fellow citizen?
Neighbor: I’m good, little girls.
Me: Thank you for answering your door. We love it!
Khrista: We’re here on behalf of the poor.
Me: Yes, the poor and struggling. Our school is collecting any items you don’t want in your house.
Khrista: Like crap you were gonna throw away anyway.
Neighbor: Oh. Wow. Well… I’m not sure what we have. What is this for, anyway?
Me: We told you it was the poor, remember?
Khrista: We go to a weird Catholic school. They always be making us do this kind of thing.
Me: Do you by any chance have vases?

Vases would be good for catching rainwater, which we could turn into a potion and drink. We also searched for a teakettle so we could pretend the Queen of England was joining us for tea, and we were forcing her to give us her grandsons in exchange for our American hospitality.

Khrista remains a great friend of mine to this day. It’s awesome to have a friend who still likes you after knowing you for 20 years. It's even more awesome to have a friend who's memorized *NSync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me” dance routine. I could pretend that phase of our life died after Justin Timberlake went solo, but we still regularly make dances, including one to Backstreet Boy’s “Larger than Life,” which involves us stuffing our shirts and pants with pillows and blankets to become sumo-sized.

I’m really going to miss my Khrista when she moves on to bigger and better things. Hopefully, she won’t find bigger and better friends then me. I mean, if she replaces me as her sausagey dance partner, I’ll never be able to listen to Nick Carter's voice without dying a little bit inside (I’m aware his voice already has this effect on 96 percent of the general population, but still).

When my friends leave and I’m still here, I’ll miss them, but of course I will be happy for them, as long as they are happy. Instead of being just a few blocks away, we’ll be states away. But there are planes, trains, and camera phones, and that makes it easier. Also, we can Skype dance. Still, I think Khrista should totally stay, don’t you?

If you’d like to make Khrista give up her career in order to make Ashley feel better, sign the petition below. Ashley will have one friend named Leanne left, but who knows, maybe Leanne will leave her for another, hotter friend. Also, let Ashley know what fun things you do alone, so she can plan for after Khrista's departure.

Related post: The Diary of Ashley Spencer: Bringing Home the Moldy Bread