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1904-03-09 - 6:52 a.m.

With the release of The Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood there’s been a lot of reminiscing of life-long friendships and comparisons of those friendships with the four Ya-Ya sisters.

My 32-year odyssey with diva would be more befitting a Laurel and Hardy movie. Our signature line would not be “Ya Ya,” but “Ollie, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

Two of our earliest shenanigans occurred in college while on an outing involving skinny dipping and beer drinking. We had, along with other friends and our respective fellas, crawled over the fence at the lake’s swimming beach, shucked our clothing and enjoyed the cool water on a hot summer’s night. With us that night was a semi-friend who we considered a hypocrite and just a bit too goody-goody for her own good. It didn’t take diva and I long to devise a prank for her. While diva frolicked and kept attention diverted, I scrambled to shore and hid Carol’s clothes. Sometime later, we all exited the water and tugged on our clothes. All except Carol, who was yelling and running around nekkid as a jay bird on the beach. Eventually I produced her duds, but we weren’t done with her yet.

Following our refreshing alfresco dip, we went on a road trip through the country, eventually ending up on a bridge spanning the Chariton River. A couple of the guys had decided the bridge was an appropriate place to conduct urgent business, so we stopped, and while the guys went off to relieve themselves, diva and I hatched another plot. Carol had brought along a little wig to conceal wet hair--and the suspicion of skinny dipping--from her parents and was wearing the damn ratty thing. Magically, the hairpiece left her head, went sailing out the window, over the old, rusted bridge railing and landed in the river. As the wig floated away in the muddy current, diva and I laughed to Carol’s shrieks. I did finally give in and go down the riverbank in pursuit of the flyway hair. Carol wrung out her fake locks and slapped them back on her head, and diva and I were satisfied she, too, was going home looking like a drown rat.

When I was in graduate school and diva was finishing her undergraduate studies, we ended up living in the same apartment complex. Not in the same apartment--her husband had put his foot down on that idea--but in adjoining buildings. In the spring of that year we had hauled home a couple of battered up bicycles from a garage sale and when the exercise urge hit us we’d ride to classes on campus. One summer night we got thirsty and decided to pay a visit to the Zodiac, our favorite gin mill at the time. And, even though this was long years prior to drinking and driving laws in Missouri, we decided it would be prudent to ride our bikes.

We peddled, dignified and sensibly, the two miles along the highway and through town to Bar Row, locked our bikes on parking meters in front of the bar and went in to quench our thirst, grown bigger due to the bike ride. Many hours and many vodka tonics later the bar closed and wobbly patrons spilled out the doors, diva and I staggering along with them. I had a key lock on my ride, and I quickly unlocked the bike. diva had a combination lock and quickly encountered problems. She couldn’t remember the combination.

We sprawled on the curb and fumbled with the lock for long minutes before a guy approached us and offered to help. diva, exasperated with the lock and addled by drink, turned to him, unbuttoned the top button on her blouse, and said: “I think the combination’s tattooed on my chest. Can you read it and unlock my bike for me?” He stumbled off and left us to figure out the numbers, which we somehow finally did and peddled--not dignified or sensibly--our way home.

Not too many years ago diva and I went to St. Louis to meet another friend for a weekend of debauchery. Although not completely familiar with the city, I knew I was more knowledgeable than the diva, so I booked a Holiday Inn for us in what I thought would be a clean and safe area of the city.

We arrived at our destination--after only being lost twice--in concealing darkness and only minutes after our friend. Excited about starting our weekend, we stayed in our room only long enough to toss our bags on the bed, then went off to have the front desk clerk call a taxi for us. Off we went to Laclede’s Landing for dinner at The Spaghetti Factory and a night of entertainment at Muddy Waters. At the end of our evening, a taxi (Yes, this is the taxi ride when I set fire to the back seat of the cab) took us back to the hotel.

The Hotel From Hell.

The room was hot and muggy when we returned and all efforts to get the air conditioner to kick in failed. I called the front desk and they promised a maintenance man. It was while waiting on the maintenance man we noticed we had a poolside room. Only the pool was empty of water and full of debris and the poolside furniture--and what appeared in frail security light to be a homeless person sleeping on one of the loungers in the deep end of the pool.

I opened the door at the maintenance man’s knock and let him into the room. Dawn went into fits of laughter, finally taking herself into the bathroom, and diva began to chant, sotto voce, “You dumbshit!” Our service man was probably pushing 90, stooped, wearing thick, grimy glasses, and his cheeks were sunken over toothless gums. After a long time squinting at the thermostat and banging on it with a hammer he announced it couldn’t be fixed and the only air we would get would come from the windows. Then he goes to open the windows, and they fall off track and crash to the ground. We had fresh air, and the man pronounced his services rendered and left.

In the middle of diva’s loud lecture to me about my innate stupidity, Dawn exited the bathroom and told us she would NOT take a shower in that filthy facility, which brought on another burst of “You dumbshit” accusations from diva. It was very early morning, and going out into what we had by then determined was not a clean and safe area of the city in search of new lodging didn’t appeal to us. I woke up the desk clerk and we were assigned a different room, this one on the second floor and with all windows in place.

The next morning we checked out, but before we could leave the parking lot in search of a new hotel we had to roust a homeless man sleeping under Dawn’s car, and I had to endure another round of “You dumbshit” allegations from diva.

Because we’ve crawled up and over the big five oh hill, some folks, who really don’t know the diva and me, think we might not find ourselves in such fine messes in the future. Silly, silly people.

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