A Story for Shelley

Once upon a time there were two girls who just happened to be attending the same university at the same time. One was beautiful, ambitious and loved molecular biology and cell regulation. The other was cute, putting in time and loved biomedical ethics and developmental biology. While on occasion their paths did cross, in fact they even studied together from time to time, the one girl was such a stuck up snob, busy with work and life, she never stopped to get to know the other girl better. Eventually the two girls graduated.

The snob got a job working as a research technician for a beef scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development. Imagine her surprise when one day she ran into the beautiful, ambitious girl at the research center! "What are you doing here?" asked the snob. "I'm doing my masters in something that's WAY over your head," said the beautiful, ambitious one. "Wow, that's ambitious...good luck!" said the snob.

Much time passed, from time to time the two girls ran into each other...but AGAIN the snob was too busy with life and such to spend any time getting to know the beautiful, ambitious one. However, as it turned out, one day the snob's boss and the beautiful, ambitious girl's supervisor got together and decided that they should add some E.coli work to the beautiful, ambitious girl's already incredibly difficult master's project.

The girl's did a little work together in Alberta, and then the project took them to Pascal, Washington. They drove down together in a wee little rental car and checked themselves into a long term hotel rental that had a patio window that didn't lock and in-suite Internet that NEVER worked. In the long term hotel rental's favor, there was a pool and a restaurant that made the best clubhouse sandwiches ever (secret ingredient...avocado!).

With some apprehension they embarked on the work portion of their endeavor, sampling on the kill floor at a slaughter plant definitely took some acclimatization. At one point the snob had to take the beautiful, ambitious girl by the shoulders and tell her to snap out of it...she had a job to do. Which may seem a little melodramatic, however it was a bonding moment for the two girls. Many, many bum swabs, intra-vaginal devices, ears and beers later...the E.coli portion of the project was completed and the snob returned to Alberta.

Not before, however, the two girls managed to cause a wee bit of trouble. They journeyed to Oregon and found a wonderful little shop that hand-crafted hand-warmer mugs and beautiful teapots. They also were delighted to discover a western store that had fabulous going-out-of-business deals, the snob became the proud owner of some beautiful earrings while the beautiful, ambitious girl became the proud owner of...well...about half the store. When they weren't spending their time around dead heifers or shopping, the girls would read Temple Grandin and People magazines around the pool. It is entirely possible that they also attracted at least a little attention of the masculine variety.

In what seemed to be a very long time, the beautiful, ambitious girl also returned to Alberta and the girls reunited to complete the final portion of the study. However in what seemed to be just a few short weeks later the beautiful, ambitious girl embarked to Saskatchewan to complete graduate classes for her masters degree. As the snob well knew, university is difficult, and when she Facebooked the beautiful, ambitious girl over and over and over again...she never took it personally when she didn't get a reply.

That spring the beautiful, ambitious girl returned to Alberta to finish the final data analysis of her project. The snob was in awe, the beautiful, ambitious girl's masters thesis had enough data for several doctorate degree's. In addition, the statistical analysis of said data was incredibly complicated and WAY over the snob's head...but what do you expect from a beautiful, ambitious girl? The girls started getting together for coffee's and lunches, after all, they did work in the same building.

They decided they should start doing things together outside of work and early that summer the beautiful, ambitious girl invited the snob along with her on a white water rafting adventure. And they did! In fact, the snob convinced the beautiful, ambitious girl that they should live a little and body surf over a rapid...who knew snob's could be so fun! In the snob's opinion, that is the weekend they stopped being friends and started being family.

Through-out that summer they were thick as thieves, and giggly as school girls. The took the snob's dog for long walks, harassed cattle liner drivers and b*tched at the Tim Horton's drive-through when there was no steeped tea. And when the snob had a difficult life decision to make, the beautiful, ambitious girl stood by her every difficult step of the way. One particularly difficult day, the beautiful, ambitious girl accompanied the snob as she escaped to her mom's. It was on that particularly difficult day that a particularly important conversation occurred between the snob, her mom, and the beautiful, ambitious girl...but that is a story for another day.

Sometime that fall the beautiful, ambitious girl decided it was time for the snob have a little fun, and with some kicking and screaming she persuaded the snob to accompany her on a night on the town. They tore up that dance floor, made 'friends' with all, 'enemies' with a few...and although it would be inappropriate to elaborate, they may have a funny underpants tale to tell.

Just a few weeks later the beautiful, ambitious girl asked the snob to be her Thanksgiving date...and the snob said yes! The trip was quite the adventure, they chauffeured a silly border collie pup, laughed until they cried about a particularly 'delicate' wall post, froze their tushies off, almost pissed her sister off, patted a 2 year old to sleep, cleaned a horse's penis, tortured a 6 week old, ate until they were sick, had a massage party, practised their smizing and even managed to raise a few eyebrows. It was a fabulously great time and a much needed retreat for the snob.

Sadly, the beautiful, ambitious girl's time at the research center was drawing to an end. She applied for, was offered, and accepted a job at a feedlot in a town that sounds like a dogs name. The girls tried to make the most of their last few weeks together, it was a busy time of home-cooked suppers, Grey's Anatomy date nights, popcorn movie nights and inevitable girl talk. Finally it was the beautiful, ambitious girl's last night and they met for one last date over drinks and sweet potato fries. In unspoken agreement, they parted without a tear, but with promises to text a gazillion times a day and write cryptic notes on each others walls.

Its been a week since the last time the snob saw the beautiful, ambitious girl. Alas, the beautiful, ambitious girl is too busy to text the snob as often as she would like. But the snob understands. The next chapter is a Christmas party the beautiful, ambitious girl asked the snob to be her date for. The snob has not yet told the beautiful, ambitious girl that she will be attending. So beautiful, ambitious girl, when you FINALLY read this...you'd better get your dancing shoes on!