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"Bestest" friend - ring guards
Jeanne Robertson
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By the way, um, can you see my rings?
Can you see my rings?
See there
My bestest friend is Norma Rose
We learned this at Graham High School, I bet you learned it at yours
Good, better, best, never let it rest
'Til the good get better, and the better get best
But in the South, women have taken that word "best" off of its lofty position
'Cause everybody we meet, we say, "This is one of my very best friends"
You can be in the produce section, see her once a week
And say, "Come over here, I want you to meet one of my very best friends, Sally Ann
What'd you say your last name is, Sally?"
It's just the way we talk
And then we have our best friends and our hordes of really best friends
So my bestest friend is what we call it, and you can have only one bestest friend
And a bestest friend is a friend who can pick you up to go somewhere important
And you get in the car looking your best, and we look right at you and say
"You missed your mouth, go back in and do something now"
That's a bestest friend
So, I was sitting at an Elon University football game a couple of years ago
When one beautiful fall afternoon
My bestest friend was sitting next to me, Norma Rose, right here
All of a sudden, she turns to me
Really watching the game, they were scoring or something, and it was real important
And she said, "Have you ever thought about getting a bigger diamond ring?"
"What's wrong with my ring, Norma Rose?"
"Nothing's wrong, nothing, not really"
I knew she'd come back, and she did
She said, "It's just that
I'm always concerned about how you look when you're in the- giving your little speeches
And I don't think the people in the audience can see your diamond ring
It's not very big, and the people in the back, I know they can't"
And I said, "Well, why would you raise-"
She said, "Jeannie, you know you have a large body"
"I know that, Norma Rose, I am sitting right here in it"
She said, "I just think you need to ask Jerry to get you a bigger-
Hint around that you want it for Christmas"
I said, "I like my ring, Left Brain got this for me
He saved his money working at the Y in Burlington and got this for me"
I don't see anything wrong with it
If people wanna see my ring, they ought to get there early and sit in the front
And anyway, we've known each other all these years
Why all of a sudden are you bringing this up?"
She said, "I don't know, It just looks smaller for some reason
It could be because of that larger arthritic knuckle
"Do you not see that it just looks a little bit small next to-"
"I don't want any new rings, I'm fi-"
She said, "Well, that's fine, that's fine, I'm just trying to help"
A few weeks go by, and the doorbell rang
Norma Rose brushed right by me at the door
"I have a solution for the ring situation"
"There's a ring situation?"
She slapped her hand down on the table like she had found a cure for cellulite
She said, "Ring guards, two of 'em"
I looked down, there's two little bitty gold circles there
You put one of these ring guards on either side of your diamond and your wedding band
And it's gonna look bigger from the audience
Allen gave these to me years ago, I don't wear 'em anymore
And I will sell 'em to you for the bestest friend price of 50 dollars
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
I looked down, and I didn't like the ring guards
I did- I didn't even think they were that pretty
They- some kind of a funny thing on them
But then I figured, "Well, Allen gave 'em, and she wore 'em
So I didn't want to hurt her feelings, she's my bestest friend"
So I said, "Oh, those are gorgeous
Those are gorgeous, and look, I can get them on over my arthritic knuckle
Oh, Norma Rose, I'd give anything, and 50 dollars, that's not bad
I'd give anything to have these rings, but
I've just always felt like a ring was a personal thing
And your husband ought to give you these rings
I just couldn't buy them for myself"
She said, "Not a problem"
Took 'em up, put 'em in her purse, zipped it up, that was it
Six weeks later, on Christmas morning
Left Brain says, "Now, I know we don't normally swap Christmas gifts"
And he hands me a little box and says
"Norma Rose says you wanted me to give these to you for Christmas"
I looked down and opened it up
And there were these two little round things that looked like two little eyes
Looking up at me like, "We didn't have a thing to do with this, not a thing"
Then Jerry says to me, "I want you to know something, honey, they're not new
But, but I bought 'em from Norma Rose, and then she sold 'em to me for 75 dollars"
I let her call me that Christmas morning
Sure enough, in a little while, she says, "Merry Christmas"
"Merry Christmas, Norma Rose"
"Did you get your ring guards?" "Yes"
"Do you like 'em?" "Yes"
"What is wrong?"
"Norma Rose, let me ask you something
You offered to sell me these rings two months ago" "Yes"
"And may I remind you that you offered to sell me these rings for the bestest friend price of 50 dollars
And now you've sold 'em to Left Brain for 75 dollars"
There was a long pause
She said, "May I remind you, Left Brain is not my bestest friend"
I have to tell you, when they show my DVDs on motor coaches
The tour directors, great people that take these folks on these wonderful trips
They see the same DVDs over and over and over
Sometimes, when they're in an audience and I tell a story, they're mouthing along
They know the whole story
They're just telling it with me
And after a while, they start watching the other part of the video
See, they will be watching y'all
They'll say, "Man, he wasn't dressed very well, but he, she looks great"
All these kinds of things
So after a speech one time, a tour director came bustling up
"Jeannie, Jeannie, I wanna ask you a question
I wanna ask you a question about Norma Rose"
I said, "Oh, wait, I get this all the time
There is a Norma Rose
We are bestest, we're absolute bestest friends
And everything I tell about her is the truth"
She said, "Oh, I know there's a Norma Rose
I've been watching her on these motor coaches for years and, your DV-
What I want to know is, does she color her hair?"
And I said, "She certainly does, alright"
These are things that happen around us all the time
And if we look for them, we will find them
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