Like We Were Kids Again
I had a very close friend in middle school. We hung out a lot, made a lot of jokes, teased girls, and played video games. However, our favorite activity was watching episodes of The Simpsons while his mom made us some seriously awesome snacks.
One day near the beginning of the winter/spring semester, I got heartbreaking news. His parents decided that they were going to upend their lives and leave to care for their ailing grandparents, who were still in Venezuela.
We didn’t have much time to hang out, but one of the last things we did together was watch The Simpsons episode where Bart was accused of fraud in Australia. We laughed and had a good time.
“Chazzwozzers,” a fake Aussie neologism that gets coined in the episode, became a favorite pseudo-swear word of ours. We said it incessantly for our last few days together, and it became imprinted on me enough that it became a permanent part of my vocabulary.
My friend and I wrote to each other occasionally after that, but eventually, we grew apart. About two years after he moved, we stopped writing to each other. We both discovered that girls were actually pretty awesome and started dating them, so keeping in touch fell by the wayside. Ten years later, I had graduated college and was working for a startup.
I drove with my girlfriend and two college buddies to meet my family upstate for a much-needed summer vacation. As we were driving on the highway, I saw a car pulled over to the side of the road with steam and water spraying out of the hood.
Since we’re making good time, I figured it wouldn’t detract much from our route if we stopped to help this guy for a second. I pulled over behind the car and walked up to the driver, who was obviously exasperated and dialing a tow truck. As he surveyed the damage, I heard him mutter, “Chazzwozzers.”
I stopped in my tracks. It was my old friend. We spent hours at the nearest rest stop, exchanging stories. We never made it upstate that day, but I didn’t care. It was like we were kids again and easily the greatest afternoon of my life. Story credit: Reddit / jxf