Gorilla-isms, lest I forget

Once upon a time back in college, I lived with a lovely Jersey girl named Gorilla. Gorilla had many... special qualities. There are so many little Gorilla stories that are so pleasant to remember, that I was thinking what a shame it is that they've never been written down. I know I've forgotten 98% of them, so before the other 2% slip my aging mind, I'm going to put them here on the internet where I can always find them. And they will probably mean nothing to you unless you were one of my college roommates, and I apologize for that, but what is most important here is me, of course.

1. Gorilla is the first person I'd ever met to have a worse sense of direction than I do. 13 years later, she is still the only person I've ever met who can get lost more easily than I. It wasn't always so clear which of us was the worst, though. Take for instance the time first year we set off together for the dining hall that was located directly across the street from our dorm. Fast forward to twenty minutes later when we looked around and realized we were nowhere near the dining hall. And then, for the next hour, we searched for the dining hall. Seriously, we couldn't figure out how to find and then enter the very simply constructed building. I think there was a parking lot involved that threw us off or something. Like that maybe we couldn't figure out how to walk around the cars? I don't know. At that point, we were both equally to blame. But one day, years later, she picked me up from the airport, and informed me that we may never make it out of the parking garage. Seems a little silly, doesn''t it? It wasn't so funny once we had circled that garage repeatedly, and still had not made any progress. Eventually, I tried to help out: "There's an exit sign! That.... way..." My voice trails off here because she interrupted me to declare, "I know, I'll just drive to the center!" She then stepped on the gas and sped us away past the exit sign towards the center of the garage. That didn't work. The cycle repeated. Again. And again. Her worrying out loud about our inability to escape, while all the while we were flying past exit signs. In a circle. I seriously began to wonder if I would ever get to leave the airport. I decided that day that I may be bad, but she is worse. Which is great - I'm always happy to find someone that can make me look good in some way!

2. The time that she brought home a new sweater and showed it off to us with this warning, "Just don't look at the price tag! Don't look, ok? It was kind of expensive... but it's really nice! It's 100% cotton - it's really nice!" When the rest of us exchanged a look she noticed. "It is 100% cotton! The saleslady told me so!" She looked so confidant, I almost hated to tell her to check the tag in the t-shirt she was wearing. Almost.

3. The fact that she told me that she was really glad we weren't assigned as roommates our first year (in fact, we lived next door to each other), because if she had seen that her new roommate was from Georgia, she might have been too afraid to come to college. The thing is, her actual roommate was from Ghana. Which is not just another state - it's another country. On a whole other continent. "So, Georgia is more scary than Ghana?", I asked. Yes, it was. Later I found out that she called her friends in Jersey just to tell them that she had met a girl from Georgia, "and she's normal!!" They were equally incredulous.

4. The time that we were exchanging little quips for some reason or another, and she came back at me with, "Well, if that isn't the white sheep calling the black sheep black!" Because she thought I was being hypocritical, and boy, did she think she had gotten me good with that remark. She laughed and looked quite triumphant. I told her that yes, in fact, it was the white sheep calling the black sheep black. She agreed. I gave up.

5. That whole phase she went through when she decided to model herself after her hero, Marisa Tomei's character in "My Cousin Vinny." This mostly meant speaking with an exaggerated New Jersey accent - because she thought this made her sound cool. You know when it stopped being amusing? Ok, it was always more puzzling than amusing, but the day when I called for a stop was the day that I heard the words "oh my gawd" come out of my mouth. I then actively worked on ridding myself of any influence I may have absorbed, but for years afterwards, I would regularly be asked if I was from New Jersey. A year after I had moved back to the south, I got taken for a Marylander, and I knew I was on the road to recovery.
This reminds me - the Jersey-girl thing was part of her lifetime goal of being a badass. That was her dream. So much so, that she once let me right "BADASS" in large letters across her forehead. But instead I wrote "DUMBASS". I'm sorry Gorilla - I guess I couldn't resist.
(hey! Know what I just realized?? Marisa's character in "Vinny" was named "Mona Lisa", and Gorilla's parents considered naming her "Lisa Mona" - no joke.)

6. Every time she laughs really hard at a joke she doesn't get. She was pretty good at faking it, but I got to know her as well as I knew anyone in school, and I could always tell when little Gorilla had no idea what she was laughing at. My favorite was the time another friend and I showed her a toy dog, that looked just like the ugly dog in the the Budweizer dog-show commercial that was on at the time. Larry was his name. We revealed the likeness by showing her the dog and reciting the line from the judges, "Larry? Larry..." She nodded and laughed and we thought we were all understood until she came up with a joke of her own: "Harold? Harold..."

7. Gorilla now has an adorable baby Gorilla, and I sent her an ornament for Christmas this year. It was a large ceramic disc that I had painted something Christmasy on and then tied a bow and a ribbon for hanging. (Please, try to contain the jealousy.) She wrote me a thank-you note for the necklace for the baby. When I later asked her if that wouldn't be a choking hazard, she said, "I know - I just thought you didn't know..."

oh, Gorilla. I love you.