Happy Birthday!

Today is my best Jen's birthday. We have been friends for a little over 15 years. In the past 15 years we have both gone through some major life changes for the better and for the worse, and through it all she's stayed my best Jen. I couldn't ever wish for a better friend. On today her birthday I wish to remember one of the most memorable birthdays in my history.

It begins 15 years ago. We are both young (not that we are old now) and we are looking forward to drinking a little beer and then going to see a movie. I am following her back to her apartment so we could ride together to my house and then to the movies. It's about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and there is traffic, or what counts as traffic in a small farming community. I am behind her, and her car starts to smoke badly. She pulls off to the side of the road, and she hops out of her car. The car is continuing to smoke so I tell her to "turn off your car Jen!" she's hopping around out side her car, she yells back at me "it is OFF!" The car continues to smoke, and smoke, and smoke. It smoke is so thick that it blocks out the sun. Okay, maybe not that bad, but bad enough that cars are slowing down because they couldn't see through the smoke. We were stopping traffic on a busy street all because of her little gray slug of a car.

Needless to say that was the end of the gray slug. Sigh, it was a cool car, and it had the best bumper stickers on it, but it was the end of an era. We never did make it to the movie that night, but we did have some good beer and laughs over the whole smoking car incident. I think it was that night we coined the phrase "Jen Factor". Good Times! Happy Birthday to Jen Factor #1!!!