saturday night live

“I am thin. Like a piece of string.”

Chris would say the words and I’d nod like a madwoman and look at others to agree. Sometimes they would – because she was smart and hot and the homecoming queen. Sometimes they’d just shake their heads and not understand.

We wrote SNL skits in our spare time. Chris and I. It was better than boys and we liked to laugh. I did a one legged, blind ballerina. Chris did The String Chick. It was her Spartan Cheerleader. Her Mary Katherine Gallagher. Her Night at the Roxbury.

I had no props. Chris had one. An old shoe lace. She’d hold it vertical in front of her. Pull the ends tight. And tuck herself in behind it. *Hidden* “I am thin. Like a piece of string. Watch me disappear.” She’d strike a pose and say “Oh yeah!”

One day a befuddled cheerleader called her on it: “Crystal. I can see you. People are just saying they can’t to be nice.”

Chris peeked out from behind the shoe lace. Slow. Deliberate. Dazed. She looked at me and I looked back. We knew what she had to do.

She carried that shoe lace for years. Whenever she was around boring or annoying, or when she just felt like disappearing because she couldn’t be bothered being there…she’d whip out the lace, hold it in front of her, and hide behind it.

“I am thin. Like a piece of string.”

She’d smile and she’d disappear.