I was drunk at the time...

As a matter of fact, I still am.  And speaking of matters of fact, the fact of the matter is that I was, earlier tonight, reminded of the fact that I love this song.  It was a pizza shop that did the reminding.  The pizza shoppery was vicarious, though; a friend told me about it as I was too cowardly to experience it first hand.  We've all, at some point in our lives, been traumatized by a pizza shoppe.  It's a part of growing up, nigh on unavoidable really.

Another one of those things you can't avoid, though, no matter how much one might wish to, one of those unavoidable things is friends.  You put on your best evil face, the one you honed for hours in front of public restroom mirrors and unleashed on panhandlers with small cups  in preparation for those rare instances when one human being, one soul more miserable than yourself might attempt to latch on to your independence.  When you're young the practice fails to make perfect and you inadvertently wind up with people who say that they are your "friends."  You and I know that they are liars, but that doesn't absolve you from responsibility.

These are the people, these inglorious bastards, they remind you of the heartaches of pizza shoppes past.  You tell them in no uncertain terms that you want to hear no stories of pizza shoppes and guys named Ben, but they won't stop.  They have that freedom, that freedom to overstep established boundaries because they are your friends, and there is an unconditionality that comes with such a weighty distinction.  These folks saw right through your evil face, and as a consequence you must let them in on your darkest secrets and, more tragically, you must listen to their stories about their herpes positive boyfriend whom they love despite the lack of full disclosure.  It's not even the fact that they now have herpes that bothers them; it's the ambiguity of expression from Ben.  Ben acts as though he doesn't love them, but all girls know that you don't give herpes to someone you don't love.  Thank god for absolute truths such as those; without them the world would be so enigmatic.