“Sometimes, when life knocks you down, you need to get up and brush yourself off because no one is there to do it for you.” —Anonymous
“Fake friends run the minute that things get messy. True friends will embrace your mess because life is too short to worry about keeping everything clean.” —Anonymous
“Sometimes, one friend tries to help their 11th-grade math teacher carry in a tray of assorted pies for Pi Day, and because no one told them their shoes were untied, they fall belly—first into the whole tray of pies, and a good friend wouldn’t laugh about that.” —Anonymous
“Communication is the key to any good friendship. Telling someone one time that their shoes are untied isn’t enough. A real friend knows that the first time, the friend will probably think they’re just messing with them. It’s still their fault if the friend trips and glides down the school hallway like they're in a slip ‘n’ slide made of banana cream.” —Anonymous
“A real friend will give you the shirt off of their back, especially if that friend was wearing a hoodie and a t-shirt, and extra especially if the belly of your shirt is literally drenched in rhubarb pie filling. A true friend doesn’t complain that they can’t give you their hoodie because their undershirt has an old stain. Hello, rhubarb pie filling stains too.” —Anonymous
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Only an insane person would keep trying to help their friend up over and over, when the coconut cream has made their fingers so slippery that they keep falling back down. Any sane person would know that their friend is so lubed up that the best option would be to use their backpack straps to tow them down the hallway on their slippery belly.” —Anonymous
“I don’t have time for toxic people, and I a hundred percent don’t have time for people with coconut allergies who leave a friend in the middle of the hallway to go get their EpiPen.” —Anonymous
“Want to see if someone is a real friend? Fall into Ms. Rickenbacher’s Pi Day pies on purpose and see if your friend, who is allergic to one of the pies, will tow you down the hallway by your backpack like you’re a pet turtle in a skating rink. That’s right, I did it on purpose as a test of friendship and some friends can’t even pass this simple test.” —Anonymous
“I’m not going to shed a single tear over a friendship lost. Sure, I may have been crying pretty hard into the smooshed lemon meringue in that video that kids have been sending around on Snapchat, but like I said, it was all an act and I was in on it. You’d be surprised at what a good actor I am. I was Winthrop Paroo in Music Man.” —Anonymous
“We don’t lose friends. We just learn who our real friends are. But we do lose money, and I lost all of my Sweet 16 money paying Ms. Rickenbacher back for all of those pies because she thought I did it on purpose. Which I did. But honestly, a teacher shouldn’t be bringing so much sugar into a high school anyway. I only got a few mouthfuls of pie, and I was flying.” —Anonymous
“When some people leave you covered in fruit, dairy, and pastry crust; flopping around for everyone to gawk at; it’s not the end of your story. It’s just the end of their part of your story. Your story includes way better friends. You just haven’t met those people yet because most everyone you know did, in fact, share the video in some medium.” —Anonymous
“Sometimes, the greatest lessons in life are free, but sometimes you have to pay your math teacher 300 dollars and go viral to learn what friendship really is. I hope someday your teacher offers you extra credit to carry in a tray of Pi Day pies from her Subaru Outback. And when that happens, I hope you learn what friendship really is, Steven.” —Anonymous