A Concoction Gone Wrong

Throughout my years on Episcopal’s Devon Campus, the funniest stories that have remained fresh in my mind all have one common protagonist-Evie O’Brian. Growing up alongside Evie has been quite the experience, as she has become the butt of all jokes. The following story illustrates the first instance when Evie was cast the role of “butt of all jokes,” but first you should know how I met Evie before she bore this title. Our friendship began one summer afternoon when my family attended a barbeque at the O’Brian home. Shortly after arriving, I was greeted by a toothy smile, belonging to none other than Evie herself, excited to greet my family and me. We both knew who each other were, but decided to pretend we were meeting for the first time-similarly this is a common occurrence in high school for girls; we like each other’s profile pictures, but when we run into each other at Chipotle in Wayne we act as if we’ve never stumbled upon each other. Anyway back to the point, I wasn’t interested in becoming Evie’s friend; my goal was to become BFFs with her older sister Abby. To me, Evie was an immature, goofy girl who had nothing in common with me. However, little did I know she would become my best friend throughout the coming years.

As a small tike, Evie was quite different than how she appears to her peers today; she spoke loudly often without a filter, could fit a quarter between her front teeth, and sang and dance as if performing for Broadway in the hallways of the Devon Campus. Our friendship blossomed in lower school where we spent the entire day together, singing to Beyoncé and thinking we knew more than our classmates because we had older siblings. Our group of two expanded, including Emma Brumbaugh and Madeleine Blommer. Emma added humor and attitude to our friend dynamic, while Madeleine brought reason and mounds of books to read. Emma exposed Evie’s weakness early on as her humor directed her to making concoctions of our lunches. This day will forever stick in my memory; the smell is just as pungent as it was nine years ago, the images replay in my head like a rerun of a movie I’ve seen dozens of times. A group of us sat down at a six top; Kelly, Chase, Taryn, Emma, Evie and I occupied the seats. After each of us had finished the bulk of our packed lunches and discarded our napkins with our mothers’ notes on them, Emma came up with a brilliant idea. Seeing Kelly’s empty water bottle, Emma jumped at the opportunity to make the biggest concoction of her cooking career. Adding a dash of salt, a blob of ketchup, stuffing sandwich crusts, and other edible ingredients, Emma mixed a smoothie. Not wanting to stop the fun, she double dog dared Kelly to drink the smoothie, claiming the concoction to be delicious. Kelly rose to the challenge, plugging her nose and bringing the water bottle to her lips. Evie witnessing this event first hand could no longer hold her disgust. Within moments of Kelly taking the first gulp, Evie upchucked her entire lunch, appearing to have eaten an entire bowl of dry dog food. The mess plastered the entire table, dripping off the edges. Bolting for the restroom, Evie left us behind with the mess, and in trouble with Mrs. Foster. As we sat in timeout for our crime, prohibited from recess, Evie walked by the five of us, quoting, “Well guys, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”