"Stop that! It's mine!"
Her high-pitched voice reverberated above the asphalt. After spotting two 8-year-olds screaming at each other more than 30 yards away, I flinched and checked my ears for head-phones. Nope, still there. Either I needed new head-phones, or this conversation was about to get physical.
"No!" came the reply. "It's mine! Give it back!" Yank. I saw the object in question: a small, fluffy brown bear. Looking cuddly, but I knew that if it had a voice, it would be screaming out in agony. Even I was amazed that the bear was still in one piece, cotton filling not spilling out already.
"It was mine first!" A harsh pull to left.
"So? You said I could have it!" Another crude jerk to the right.
"I said you could borrow it! Not have it!" Back to the left. But this time, the bear was twisted.
"Yes! You! Did!"
"No! I! Didn't!"
"Yes! You—"
"Stop it!" I told the both of them, snatching the tortured bear from their wrangling hands. I looked at the both of them. The two smiling, laughing girls I saw the first days, locked in arms embrace, had been replaced with squabbling demons. Sigh. Why did this have to happen on my day?
"Aren't you two friends?" I asked. Cut straight to the chase. Forget about the whole dispute. Just solve the issue at hand. Now if only I could write essays in the same way. Apparently colleges don't like essays that are longer than 2,000 words.
"No! She's not my friend!" they said in unison. "I don't even know her that well!"
Irony, at its finest. Or is that tragedy? Whatever.
They continued to argue, calmly at first, but then frantically and with jabbing fingers and squinting eyes. It was all I could do not to try and smother them with my hands.
"Stop!" I repeated. Luckily they listened to me. If they were boys, it would've been completely ineffective.
"What's wrong? You guys know each other for at least—" I made up a number in my head. "—2 weeks. Aren't you friends now?"
They both gave me a glare. "No! Friends aren't made in 2 weeks!"
Exasperatedly, I asked. "So how long is until friends are made? A month? A year?"
They shook their heads, and I did my best not to roll my eyes. But when it was apparent that neither would talk again, I sent them off to opposite sides of the playground. Which left me standing there were a teddy bear in my hands.
In the end, it turned out that it was neither of the girl's bear. A child had lost it last week, and had been looking dramatically for it as well. It was returned without a single rip, to my relief. Well, that was one mystery solved.
But there was still one more. How long does it take for someone to be a friend? Granted, those two girls could have just been experiencing the melo-dramatic weekly fights all girls have. But still, the question remains unanswered.
In the end, I can not help but wonder whether the girls have very high standards for friends to meet, or I simply have never had any friends at all.
Either way, I end up worrying about girls that I'll meet in the future, or girls I already know.
Why do girls have to make life complicated?
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