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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2046282-The-Visit
by River
Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Friendship · #2046282
It all started when I noticed a friend request on Facebook.
Prompt: An old friend finds you on a social networking site.


It all started when I noticed a friend request on Facebook. I clicked on the notification and read. Gayle Thompson has sent you a friend request. Gayle and I were close childhood friends and distant cousins, so I clicked accept and waited anxiously to catch up on our lives.

Soon I received a long detailed message from her, then another and another and another. It became difficult to keep up with the messages. The next week I got a phone call from her. She talked an hour and a half, nonstop. It was all about her, her family, and her cats --- mostly the cats. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The phone calls came with increasing regularity. The next contact was Skype, I was actually happy when my computer crashed, and I had to delete Skype.

It soon became obvious that Gayle was what I call a Drama Queen. I wondered what had happened in her life to change her personality so much because she hadn’t been this way when we were young.

The first thing I knew she had arranged a trip to visit me, this involved an airplane, she arrived with tons of luggage and a huge photo album of the cats. We sat sipping wine as she pointed out the different cats and page upon page of their cute behavior. It was a long week!

I moved to a smaller place without a spare bedroom, but this didn’t slow her down a bit. Every summer just like clockwork Gayle would arrive for the annual meeting. She had graduated to a laptop now and the pictures were in the thousands instead of hundreds.

As summer approached, each year, I began to feel like a plague was descending upon me. I began to screen my phone calls and avoid Facebook, but to my dismay Gayle contacted my daughter this year with her travel itinerary. Shuddering at the thought of how many photographs of the cats she may have taken since her last visit, we tried to come up with a valid excuse for why we couldn’t receive her this year.

Finally, we gave up and resigned ourselves to our fate. I would never wish illness upon anybody, but I was relieved when the 45 minute phone call came through informing me that Gayle had caught a bug on the plane and was unable to come for her yearly visit. I thought I would feel guilty for feeling this way, but all I felt was relief and a sense of peace. All is well that ends well. Until next year...
© Copyright 2015 River (riverbedwriter at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2046282-The-Visit