Ever since Lauren and I had a fight, I’ve tried to put her first. I totally became a horrible friend and let my online life rule everything. I was a single-minded vlog robot. So now, when Lauren says she wants to see me, I go.
Her parents really don’t get along. They throw shopping bags at each other on a regular basis. They aren’t even living with each other at the moment, but they still have a war every time they meet. Lauren has told me she thinks she might be the result of a scientific experiment where they got two of the most unsuited human beings in history and forced them to have a child. I think this may be Lauren being a bit paranoid, but I can see her point. Her life does sound like a Marvel superhero’s life. You know, overwhelming home life, and then one day you realize you can fly or that you’re invisible. Well, she isn’t that because we can all see her, but you know what I mean.
Lauren meets me at her front door. She’s wearing her “I’m-so-excited-I-could-burst” face. She beckons me in, grabs both of my arms, and starts doing little jumps on the spot.
“I’m SO glad you’re here!” she whispers. “I have just found out the most unbelievable thing! Are you ready for this?”
I don’t think I am, but I don’t think I’ve got any choice, either. I know my best friend. She looks like she might burst. Lauren takes a deep breath.
“Millie. Termites eat wood faster when they listen to rock music.”
I start giggling. “C’mon, Lauren. That is just some bored pest controller man writing something random on Twitter for a joke and then someone believes it and…”
Lauren interrupts me. “No! I thought exactly the same thing, but I’ve read a ton of articles and I swear it’s true. Clever people have confirmed it!”
I have an idea. “Okay. We should totally try to prove it. It could be a vlog! Hashtag Help the insects to eat my house faster! Well, you know what we need! We need termites.”
Lauren looks at me. “There must be some in here. It’s like a sanctuary for crawly things.”
Lauren’s house is honestly fine, but her dad and mum have spent so much time arguing over the years that the basic maintenance of the place has been ignored. This is extra strange as Lauren’s dad is a KING Handyman!
The issue is you need teamwork to tile a bathroom, and you can’t be a team when you’re bringing up everything that the other one has ever done wrong EVER. Lauren says her mum makes a list of “bad memories” in the notes section of her phone so she can use them at will in arguments.
Lauren and I start to look for termites. We google what they look like, but we don’t find any. Lauren reads that you can hear them eating your house if you put your ear up to a wall. She spends the next ten minutes with her face pressed up against every flat surface in the place. All we find is lots of dust (Gary would FREAK out!), a dead spider, and a slipper in the shape of a pizza that Lauren had when she was six. I post this on my Instagram page with #ShoeGoals.