My dear friend Sarah Kate and I go back like ice cream soda and ginger-ale pop.  We were lucky kindred spirits in that we were both devilish and found friendship early in our lives. We both loved to dig up bugs out of the dirt and toss them on each other.  We both were bored with the princesses in fairytales and would cheer on the villains. The wicked witches were actually our heroines. In all of our naughtiness, we rationalized the behavior because we were doing so to avenge the wonderful witches that were always ruined at the end of every story. However, there was a good main character who earned our affection and that was Wonder Woman!

  We both loved to wear our Halloween pointy hats, sit at her mother’s vanity and say, “Mirror mirror on the wall. Who is the evilest of them all? Whether it’s Mona or whether it’s Kate, if we get them all, that would be great!” Only after we were told not to do so,  we climbed apple trees in our backyards then passed them out to our neighbors expecting them to go home and fall into coma-like periods of sleep. Innocently, we’d walk up to passers-by with our baskets full of washed apples and say, “Hello beauty, I have an apple for you.” Smiling faces responded, “Aw you two are so sweet!” We’d  smirk at each other imagining the endless slumber of gloom that would shortly befall them. In unison, we’d say, “Good one.”

We were always witches for Halloween and secretly would play “evil.” We’d toss beetles and ants on the faces of her brother’s GI Joe and My Buddy dolls.  We’d change our voices to witch voices and giggle while imitating the screams of torture that Joe and Buddy cried out in their agonizing pain. “No! Please, evil Queen.. not my eye!!”

She and I were children of men who were oddly tickled by our odd behavior.  It’s not too surprising that her dad who had a tremendous sweet-tooth would allow us to eat Whatchamacallit chocolate bars before dinner and then be excused from the table after two bites of her mother’s horrible food.  My dad allowed us to curse. I remember when Jake from the end of the block called Sarah Kate an “ass-wipe.”  She came over crying and dad promptly told her his usual response, “PISS ON that motherfucker!” I’d echo him, “Yeah SK! Piss on that motherfucker!” She added, “Piss and shit on that motherfucker!”

Her dad passed and she called. “Dad died.”  Immediately I asked, “Was it your mom’s cooking or the sugar?”

We laughed and cried and laughed a bit more. After a few hours of talking and just before I hung up, I could hear her say, “Good one.”

When my father was dying, his kidneys were failing and I sat bedside at the hospital.  Sarah Kate came by to say her goodbyes and noticed an empty urine bag.

She looked at me and shook her head, “I guess he pissed on so many people he finally  ran out.”   I’m sure even dad would have laughed.  It was the hard laugh I desperately needed in my moment of pain.  Just before she left, she looked back at us over her shoulder. I told her. “Good one!”

Recently Sarah Kate called to tell me she has breast cancer.  We sat in a long paused moment, I needed to absorb it and she needed to say it aloud.  Suddenly, she got angry and yelled asking, “Why is this happening to me God!?”

I waited for a moment and when she settled down I asked, “Do you think it’s because we flashed our tits to that priest that time we snuck and went to Mardi Gras?”

A long silent pause was broken by her screaming laughter turned into our girlish evil giggles. “That old man looked like he was going to beat us with a stick! Why did we do that SK?”

“Don’t you remember? We were trying to pump ourselves up and I suggested we get the Father’s blessing before we flashed strangers.”

“Oh yeah! We were boobie blessing the good folks of New Orleans with our underaged tits.”

Though we only speak every blue moon, we find a way to give each other some “good ones” so that we can give our version of healing laughter in tragedies.  She asked me why did we love Wonder Women and hate all of the princesses.  I wasn’t immediately sure but I figured it out…

Dear SK, Wonder Woman was a warrior! She was a fighter.  When tragedy showed up, she didn’t tremble and wait to be saved. She fought it and won! For us, success wasn’t the happily-ever-after obedient wife chained to the kitchen and kids. It was living our atypical lives on our own terms fearlessly. Even the villains were powerful women who were brave and strong.  We both knew at a very young age (and encouraged by the men in our lives) that we were not little helpless princesses.  We liked Wonder Woman because like her, (deeeeep inside) we were good. We loved strong women because those delicious fairytales told us that tough times are coming so get strong for times such as these! We loved her because she showed us how to be prepared, gear up and win! We laugh in the face tragedy because we are not defeated by it.