This is my best friend ever (and ex-girlfriend) Mel Carr.

We met in college our freshman year. I think it is difficult to quatify or justify "most interesting friend" so I am just going to tell you a story.

OK, so, this one time, Mel and I were dating, but we weren't dating. She really liked me and I was in love with someone else but I also really cared about her. Also, this one time, Mel was an alcoholic and I was super abusing prescription uppers. This is all relevant.

This was after we'd gotten tattoos together (not matching ones - my first and her second). This was after I'd broken up with her (without being with her). I had been in the library that night hyped up on amphetamines and working on a paper I really, really had to write, which meant that I had sent several very long and detailed emails to people, including the dude I was stupid-in-love with, and sporadically banged out a little bit of the paper. That was all right though. I had all night to work on it.

Well, the library closed at 1, but there was this cafe attached to the library that was open all night. I moved there at closing time. I started getting texts from Mel. She wanted to know where I was. I must've kind of sighed dismissively - I really needed to work on this paper - and I told her that. I told her she could come by but I couldn't really hang out. I had to concentrate.

Around two maybe Mel showed up. And she was drunk. She was like, stumbling into the cafe, being far too loud and barely coherent drunk. I was kind of pissed about how drunk she was - not necessarily pissed at her, kind of pissed at the friends she'd been drinking with. She told me she'd thrown up in a bush on the way over. She told me she'd thrown up at the apartment with the friends and then they'd gotten her to drink some more. Now, I'm sure they didn't need to twist her arm, but I was still unhappy that someone you'd call a "friend" would let you do that. I told her to sit down. I probably tried to get her water. At the same time, I really, really need to work on my paper. So I sat in a chair and she sat in the booth seat across from me.

Mel started falling asleep. I tried waking her up, knowing it was probably not a good thing that she was falling asleep, but she wouldn't. On top of that, the commons (cafe) was pretty crowded. I couldn't be too loud or obnoxious. Mel worked for Public Safety, aka the University's police force, and she was way underage at this time, probably 19, maybe 20. Finally I was kind of like "Well I'll just monitor her, make sure she is breathing every once in a while, and let her pass out for a bit while I work on my essay." This worked for about twenty minutes.

In her sleep, Mel rolled forward. In doing so, she fell off the booth. Not a big deal, right? Wrong-o. Somehow Mel managed to hit her head, probably (we think) on a screw on the underside of the table. So she's lying on the floor, and I'm trying to wake her up. She seems confused and at first won't wake up. I'm like whatever, not a big deal, if she is just going to sleep on the floor she'll sleep on the floor. Then I notice her head is bleeding. Like, really bleeding. Like, "maybe Mel is going to have to go to the hospital" bleeding. And in the meantime, we are hanging out in a corner of this cafe, with a sizeable audience. I'm trying to wake Mel up.

I frantically call my friend Katie who's known Mel since high school. Katie is at my ex-boyfriend Eric's dorm, because Katie and Eric are fucking now. THat's okay, I'm over the relationship. What's really important to me is that someone can come and help me out with Mel because clearly, at minimum, we need to get her out of here. Katie tells me she'll come. Somehow, for some reason, I kind of doubt it. Partially because it seems like I might have interrupted her and Eric when they wanted some booty, partially because she doesn't seem to understand the gravity of the situation. I call Mel's ex-boyfriend Josh who is also a kind of friend of mine. Josh is all hung up on Mel, although in generally a harmless, even kind of nice way. I know he'll come. He agrees to head over immediately, even though he's on the other side of campus. At least he has a car. I focus on waking Mel up.

I manage to do this. She's disoriented. I try to explain what's going on, quietly. There's a puddle of blood on the carpet. I pack up my stuff as Mel sits there, dazed and confused. I don't think we had anything she could hold on the wound in order to stop the bleeding. We may have pulled her hood over her head in order to hide it. Mel is adamant that she cannot go to the hospital; at this time our university did not have an alcohol amnesty program and she does not want to lose her job. I am not happy about this but she is ADAMANT. I figure we will wait til Katie and Eric, and then later Josh, show up.

Well Katie and Eric don't show up. A half-hour goes by, more than enough time (they were a 10-minute walk away). Josh shows up about 45 minutes into this. We hustle to get out of there and in the nick of time too - someone at the cafe had the bright idea to call, you guessed it, Public Safety. As we are leaving an officer comes in and starts poking his head around. However, there's no passed out girl anywhere, not that he can see at any rate. So we escape without notice. As we're leaving, Katie and Eric finally show up, nearly an hour after I called them. I'm like whatever guys. We got this under control. Thanks for the help. Thanks for caring about your friend.

Josh and I talk about what to do as we get Mel into the car and take her to her dorm. She's conscious and she's refusing to go to a doctor. I'm like "Look, fine, we can wait and see how it is, all right?" We get a lot of water into Mel and she wants to lie down and sleep some more. What else are we going to do? We let her. (Don't worry. Mel doesn't die at the end of this one.)

Around 6 AM I go in to check at her and she is still bleeding and I don't know what to do. I talk to Josh. He doesn't know what to do. So I call the one man I know I can call in a situation like this, a man who will give me answers before grilling me about what's going on - because this man understands what has priority, taking care of someone over yelling at me. His daughter. Yup, I call my dad. I explain to him Mel was drunk, fell, hit her head some hours ago, and is still bleeding.

"Emergency room." He says. "OK. Maybe student health?" I ask. "Sure. That'll work." And he lets me get off the phone and take care of my friend. <-Calm head under pressure, understands it's far more important to take care of shit that hand out blame or anger. That's why my dad rocks. Also he knows everything. Everything you need to know in an emergency, anyway.

Against Mel's protests Josh takes her to student health. They take her to the hospital, and she gets two metal staples in her head.

Guess we did the right thing.

. For the rest of college we would go visit the cafe and point out Mel's blood on the carpet. They eventually got the carpet replaced. We liked to say that she had permanently marked the college.

.

Mel's pretty crazy but she's tons of fun and I lub her.