M&Ms

I have a friend from college. She is so delicate that if you put her next to Winona Ryder, Winona would look rangy and awkward. More astounding than my friend’s otherworldly beauty is her incredible brilliance. She has a mind that attracts, retains, and knits information together like a Dr. Seuss invention, only better.

When we were seniors in college – that would be after four years of a Very Good Education – my brilliant, refined friend was overcome by a fey mood. I was studying at my desk in my first floor room with its floor-to-ceiling windows. I saw her VW Beetle pull in the parking lot, but sat where I was, working.  Then she popped up, laughing brightly, shaking a box of peanut M&Ms. She gestured, “Want some?” Shake-a, shake-a went the M&Ms. I was about to answer when the box vanished into her pocket and the two peanut M&Ms that were in her hand caught her gaze.  She laughed, and then for some reason, stuck those peanut M&Ms, one up each nostril, and did a jig. Silliness, until she inhaled. Her jig stopped. Her silliness slipped into an “Oh, schiesse!” face.

The oh-schiesse face segued into mouth-breathing all the way to the Emergency Department in the next town over. While the mucus-covered peanut M&Ms were being extracted, the recurring question was “…and you are a senior….in college…?”