“Nancy, I think I have tetanus.”

I want to start by taking this opportunity to congratulate both my cousin, Alyssa, who you may remember was the revered choreographer for mine and Melissa’s First Dance at our wedding reception, as well as our dear friend, Nancy, for they both share their birthday, March 30, with the incomparable, Céline Dion. Amazing, each of you won the game of life the day you were born. My world is a better place because of you (both!)

Now, I hate disappointing you all, really I do, but this isn’t going to be another Céline Dion post. I’m sorry, I know, with a teasing introduction like that you were surely now excited for one, but you’re just going to have to remain disappointed because this here post tells the tale of a rather trying time for our dear friend, Nancy. Her friends really put her through the wringer over a decade back and from it all, six little words changed the trajectory of our friendship forever.

One night, what now feels like a lifetime ago, Ashley, Marcus, and I were all over at Melissa’s parents house where the four of us (Melissa included) were watching a horror movie called, Train – this will become highly relevant in a bit. I remember that around this time, Melissa and I had just started hanging out with Nancy on a regular basis and Ashley, who had only met Nancy once by this point, was intrigued by our new friend and wanted to know as much about her as she could. I mean, who wouldn’t!?! Nancy’s quite an intriguing gal, so Melissa and I did our best to entertain Ashley’s line of questioning.

I can assure anyone reading this and thinking Ashley’s weird for wanting to know so much about Nancy that this is actually pretty commonplace amongst us. Anytime someone new comes along we always bombard that individual with hoards of questions and as Nancy wasn’t there to answer them herself at the time of this story, Ashley directed her Nancy-based questions to me and Melissa. Never underestimate just how nosey I can be – and clearly some of my friends.

Well, as we sat there and watched this Hostel style movie, there was a particular scene where these college athletes are playing truth or dare while aboard their train in eastern europe that inspired everything I’m about to tell you. One of the jocks is dared to go to the end of the train and back wearing nothing but his underwear. Well, when he reaches the end car, he runs into a madman who attacks him, during the attack, the jock makes a wrong move and steps barefooted on a rusty nail that is sticking straight up from a janky floorboard. After that, it’s all over for him. The movie only gets crazier and gorier from there, so watch with caution, but here is where our real fun begun.

Ashley started asking Melissa – a lab nurse – if this boy from the movie would now have tetanus following stepping on top that rusty nail? Melissa responded with a classic, “Hell Ashley, I don’t know, maybe.” Then I suggested to Ashley that she text Nancy and ask her since she and Melissa have the same job and Nancy was a year ahead. Ashley didn’t yet have Nancy’s phone number, but that was an easy problem for me and Melissa to fix, so within moments, Ashley had sent Nancy her first of what has since been many, many texts.

“Nancy, I think I have tetanus.”

We all laughed and laughed at this text and continued watching the movie as the anticipation for Nancy’s response built up greater and greater amongst the four of us. It felt like an eternity at the time and all things considered, it probably was because I remember a solid thirty or so minutes had passed before we finally got a response from good old Nancy.

“Who is this?”

Poor Nancy, her innocent and appropriate response was interpreted much differently by the four of us. We knew then that we could have quite a lot of fun with this as Nancy didn’t have Ashley’s number anymore than up until a bit ago Ashley had hers. The prospect of who we could be to Nancy was seemingly endless.

“Who should I say I am?” Ashley asked and for the briefest of seconds the four of us sat there wondering who we should pretend to be, but it didn’t take long for the answer to become increasingly clear to me and Melissa.

Now let me interject this – for the sake of the story – I’m going to use a common name as to protect the name of the true individual we pretended to be. Hell, he could potentially read this and I don’t want him knowing we pretended to be him, so for the sake of the story we’re going to use the name, “Matt.”

We responded to Nancy with, “Oh sorry, it’s Matt.”

“Oh gee, Matt. You really scared me there.” Nancy replied right away. Her quick turnaround let us know we were now in conversation mode, so we wasted no time getting back to her.

“So hey, Nancy, I got a BOGO coupon to the Macaroni Grill if you would want to go with me sometime?” We text as the four of us sat there laughing our asses off. I remember I literally had clipped this very coupon out of the paper earlier that day and had it on me in my wallet, so I took it out for reference.

“The BOGO is for buy one entree get one free with the purchase of two drinks if that helps.” We text right away to clear up any confusion we thought she might be having – about the coupon.

The minute hand on the clock was turning and turning and we hadn’t received another response from her, so we thought we’d double down. “It’s really a pretty good deal I think. Buy one entree, get another one free. We’d just have to get two drinks, which is easy because I know you love your Coca-Cola. You know I’m a Diet Coke guy myself, so right there we got two drinks!”

Still we went without another response from poor Nancy. We decided to push the topic a bit further with another text. “The coupon expires in just under two months, so you don’t have to decide right now. We still got plenty of time.”

The four of us sat there and laughed our asses off further at poor Nancy’s expense before we grew tired of waiting for her next text and finished out the movie. Just as we were able to close up shop for the night and all go our own way, she responded back to us.

“Sorry Matt, I was busy at work.” If memory serves me correctly, Nancy was working some sort of evening gig at her hospital. “I’m pretty busy with everything right now, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to Macaroni Grill with you before your coupon expires. I would hate for it to go to waste, so don’t wait on me to use it.”

Instantly, we were all right back in and laughing hysterically at her kind-hearted response. “Oh, don’t worry, like I said, there’s almost two months before it expires, so I’m sure we can find the right day and time.” We text her back immediately before promptly following that one up with, “We can figure out a good night the next time we both work together.”

Poor Nancy, she never responded in text after that and Ashley, Marcus, and I all went back to our respective houses and left Melissa at hers. The most thrilling part of all this was that the following day, I had pre-existing lunch plans to go to Jerry’s Cafeteria with Nancy herself, so the anticipation on whether or not she would bring this up had become borderline hysteria to the four of us. We all wanted to know how it would go hearing it from Nancy herself, but none more than me. I don’t recall ever being more excited for Jerry’s!

The next day Nancy came and picked me up at my parent’s house and the two of us rode down to Cutesville and thankfully, Nancy started telling me right away the story from the night before and rather than paraphrasing any of it, she just let me read the texts from her phone.

I was dying with laughter on the inside and out, but had to keep some sort of composure otherwise she might grow suspicious. I asked her what she was going to do and she told me she had literally lost sleep over this incident. She said she laid awake in bed all night in fear of having to see “Matt” at work and what she would even say to him when she did.

I did feel bad that she lost sleep over our little prank, but that didn’t keep me from playing the same role I had been. I advised her not to say anything to him and wait and see if he brought it up to her first. She said this was what she already decided she would do and thank goodness! Could you even imagine how awkward that moment would have instantly become for the two of them if she started talking about a Macaroni Grill BOGO coupon to this poor, unsuspecting guy!?! He’d have been even more lost than she was!

Nancy’s biggest issue was the obvious one, she couldn’t believe that not only did “Matt” have the audacity to text her and ask her out on a date, rather than in person, but was so cheap that he was only doing so because he had a buy one, get one free coupon to the Macaroni Grill! She was beside herself in confusion, rage, and just overall, irritation. It was quite a sight coming from a usually reserved and soft-spoken Nancy. I was taking all the mental notes I could, so when I saw Ashley, Marcus, and Melissa again that night, I could fill them in on all the luxurious details of this Jerry’s outing.

It goes without saying that I relayed everything I could to the other three and we laugh and laughed some more, but eventually we knew we would have to tell Nancy the truth, so we did, only it just happened to be several weeks later. Poor Nancy worked all that time with “Matt” in constant fear that he would approach her at any moment and mention the possibility of them dining at the Macaroni Grill together while using his BOGO coupon. Matt never brought it up to her of course as he had no reason to, but the looming fear that we left Nancy in at the prospect was fairly vicious in retrospect. Honestly, it’s a genuine miracle Nancy remained friends with us after this terror-inducing stunt, but despite it all, those six words from that initial text has provided us with more than a decade of laughs and memories that I’m certain for better or worse, none of us will soon forget.

Well, as always, thank you for reading! I appreciate your continued support! PLEASE feel free to leave me a comment below! I LOVE reading them more than anything! Also, PLEASE subscribe by email if you have not done so already! It would mean the world to me! So, until next time, I hope you all are living THE BEST life ever during these unique and uncertain times! Thank you again and see you soon!