My best friend Ricky set the entire searing hot dumpster fire of a plan in motion when he showed up at my little birthday shindig uninvited, looking like an extra from The Walking Dead with sunken eyes, yellow skin, ratty hair and a frustrated look of hunger on his face. The guy kind of always looked like one of those Troll dolls with his big round eyes, coarse hair and stumpy stature, but he somehow found a way to make himself look like an even uglier pop culture character.

Ricky was one of those guys who you were permanently stuck with just because you were best friends when you were six. The two of us grew apart as we aged, but he always seemed to be able to hide in the back of my friend cavity like a sticky booger with a penchant for showing up at the very worst time.

With four of my “normal” college friends who had no idea who Ricky was and only a vague sense of my shitkicker upbringing in the wheat fields of southeastern Washington mixing around my dorm room with Jack and Cokes in plastic juice cups, this was one of those “worse times.” I caught a glimpse of each one of my “new” friends giving Ricky the look one gives right before they say, “I’m going to call the cops.”

Ricky started into a manic frenzy of words, spit and thirsty eyes aimed at bottles of whiskey.

“Derek, you got this. I can help you,” Ricky said.

I heard one of my friends mutter “You know this guy?” from behind me.

I pulled Ricky out into the hallway and away from the judging eyes of my new friends.