A brief history of friendship

Toast has asked about Toni, and team chipotle, and how we all know each other. I promised I'd try to work on a little history for her. First, Toni and I.

Toni and I met in college, while working in the student union. Toni worked in the copy center, and I was one of the snobby main office staff. She was younger than me, and I don't know what her first impression of me was, probably that I'm a bitch, my first impression of her was "wow, a freshman applying for a manager position, ambitious"(She got that job, and rocked it, btw) she may have been a sophomore, I don't really remember. Anyway, we worked together for the next couple years, and knew each other, but didn't spend a lot of time together. I remember the first time we ever did anything outside of work (although it was still for work) and that was when we went to linens and things and bought stuff for the banquet. We also each bought a setting of a dish set we thought was cool. I still have the bowl.

Then, one summer, we were part of the skeleton staff working in the union in the summer. We all worked in just about every service area in the summers, and we were bored. So Toni would spend her days at Copies Plus, and I'd be at the Etcetera Shop, and we'd be im'ing and playing online games at pogo.com. We started to hang more and more that summer, along with Mandy and Charmaine, two other union employees. There was a night at Famous Dave's in Fargo where we sat on the patio, and drank, and talked, and generally had a fantastic time. There was another night at Grizzly's where we drank, I was sick, and we went home relatively early, I was house/dog-sitting for Cliff and Sandy (full-time career services staff). Toni went off to do someone something, and stopped by afterwards to fill me in.

After that summer, the rest is really history. We've been friends ever since, and we've been through some ups and downs, thankfully more ups than downs.

Toni and I at our college graduation.

Team Chipotle. Hmm. Where to begin? Well, it's probably best to start at batgirl. Batgirl is a Minnesota Twins blog. She's hilarious, and intelligent, and a fantastic person. We were all avid readers of batgirl. One day*, we all started chatting in the comments portion of her daily entry about dating, and baseball. By "we all" I mean way more than just the four of us.

Eventually, people did set up a day to meet, and while I wasn't there, rachel wasn't there, sarah wasn't there, and theresa wasn't there, i believe nick and beth were. We also met them through the website. Yes, I met my boyfriend online. But it's different than a dating service! [/defensiveness]

I digress. *ahem*. Eventually, we decided that we needed to meet everyone for a game again. One out-of-town batling was uncertain if she could come to town. Me, being the smartest person in the world, emailed said batling (rachel) and said "hey, complete stranger, as long as you promise not to murder me, you can stay in my living room." Well, rachel, being the second smartest person in the world said, "sure!" Sarah also expressed and interest in attending, but paying for a hotel wasn't in her budget. So, I said to myself, "self, what's one murderer more?" And I invited Sarah to come on over and sleep in my living room as well. This was the result.

Nobody died, so we decided to do it again, only this time, one of our regular board members (we moved from batgirl's comments to a message board) was coming home from Iraq on leave. So an all-out bash was planned. We call it: Labor Day. Sarah, Rachel and Theresa all stayed in my living room for that weekend, and team chipotle was born. The rest, as they** say, is history.

Dawn, Rachel, Sarah, Theresa

*if you read the comments there, a guide to people:
ndtf=rachel
aurora=dawnmarie
say-rah=sarah
olbiemn=theresa
**Who the heck are they anyway?