"They say it's the same as the distance from the tip of a guy's thumb to the tip of his index finger."
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"Hi, guys." Phoebe walked into the coffee shop.
"Hey. Oh, how'd it go?" I put down my mug on the coffee table.
"Um, not so good. He walked me to the subway and said, 'We should do this again'." She explained, making us all groan.
"What? He said 'We should do this again'. That's good, right?" Rachel furrowed her brows.
"No. Loosely translated, 'We should do this again' means 'You will never see me naked'." Monica replied to her.
"Since when?" Rachel walked out form behind the counter and came over to us.
"Since always." Joey shrugged his shoulders and grabbed my cup of coffee. "It's like dating language. You know, like, it's like 'It's not you' means "It is you'."
"Or 'You're such a nice guy' means 'I'm going to be dating leather–wearing alcoholics and complaining about them to you'." Chandler added.
"I've got one. 'See you soon' means 'I hope I never see you again'." I gave another example.
"Even 'I think we should see other people' means 'Ha, ha, I already am'." Phoebe chuckled.
"And everybody knows this?" Rachel looked at the six of us.
"Oh, yeah. It cushions the blow." Joey responded.
"Like when you're a kid and your dog dies, they put it to sleep and say it went off to some farm." Chandler spoke up.
"That's funny. No, because our parents actually did send our dog up to live on a farm." Ross pointed at Monica.
"Uh...Ross?" She looked at her older brother.
"What, hello? The Milner's Farm in Connecticut?" He glanced at her before the rest of us. "The Milners had this unbelievable farm. They had horses and rabbits to chase and..." We all kind of gave him the same look of 'you're serious?' and pity. "Oh my God, Chi Chi!" He realized.
A little later, I was with Chandler, Joey, Monica, and Ross at the coffee shop explaining what size a guy's...thing usually is.
"They say it's the same as the distance from the tip of a guy's thumb to the tip of his index finger." Monica and I showed them. The guys did the same thing with their hands.
"That's ridiculous." Joey scoffed.
"Can I use either thumb?" Ross asked me. I leaned back in the arm chair and nodded my head. Then Rachel came over with our drinks.
"Alright, don't tell me, don't tell me." She held up the tray. "Decaf cappuccino for Joey. Coffee black for Ross. Hot chocolate for Chandler. Latte for Monica. And iced tea for Suparna." She handed us our drinks completely wrong. "I am getting good at this." She smiled at us.
"Excellent. Very good." We all said to her.
"Good for me!" She said in a sing–song voice before walking back to the table. I handed my iced tea to Chandler, who handed me my hot chocolate. Then the guys switched once more before we had our correct drinks. Phoebe walked into the coffee shop muttering something. She sat down in the middle of the sofa.
"You okay, Phoebe?" Joey inquired with his eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, no, I'm...It's not even worth it—it's my bank." She crossed her arms over her chest.
"What did they do to you?" Monica furrowed her brows.
"It's just...Okay, I'm going through my mail, and I open up their monthly statement. And there's $500 extra in my account." She explained.
"Oh my God! How dare they!" I scoffed sarcastically.
"Satan's minions are at work again." Chandler shook his head.
"Now I have to go there and deal with them..." She trailed off.
"What are you talking about? Keep it!" Joey told her.
"But it's not mine." She pointed to herself. "I didn't earn it. If I kept it, it would be like stealing."
"Yeah, but if you spent it, it would be like shopping." Rachel joined the conversation.
"Okay, okay, let's say I bought a really great pair of shoes. Do you know what I'd hear with every step I took? 'Not mine, not mine, not mine'. And even if I was happy and skipping, I'd hear 'Not, not mine, not, not mine...'" She continued.
"We're with you. We got it." I held up my hand and said to her politely to get her to stop.
"I'd never be able to enjoy it. It would be like this giant karmic debt." She let out a sigh. That's when I noticed my brother bent behind the sofa.
"Chandler, I swear if you're doing what I think you're doing, I'm going to kick you where the sun never shines." I muttered to him. Monica pulled him up. He couldn't say anything, but we all groaned when he let out a puff of smoke.
"What is this?" Ross exclaimed.
"I'm smoking. I'm smoking." He admitted to us.
"You've been so good for three years." Phoebe looked up at him.
"And this is my reward." He held up the cigarette.
"Think about what you went through the last time you quit." Joey reminded him.
"Okay. So this time I won't quite." He responded. I grabbed the cigarette and put it out...into my own drink. I let out a cry and set down the cup.
"All your fault, Bing." I pointed my finger at him. Monica rubbed my back before grabbing her bag from the sofa.
"I've got to go change. I have a date." She smiled.
"With Alan again?" Rachel and I said at the same time and high–fived each other.
"How's it going?" Phoebe asked her.
"It's going pretty good, you known? He's nice, we're having." She nodded her head.
"So when do we get to meet him?" Joey leaned his arms and his chin against the chair since he was sitting in it the opposite way.
"Let's see, today is Monday. Never." She replied before heading towards the door.
"Come on, Mon." We all called out to her in our own ways.
"No, not after what happened with Steve." She shook her head quickly.
"What are you talking about?" Chandler asked. "We loved Schteve. Schteve was schexy." My brother imitated his lisp. "Sorry." He finally stopped laughing.
"I–I don't even know how I feel about him. Let me figure that out." She clasped her hands.
"Then can we meet him?" Rachel leaned against the back of the sofa.
"Nope. Schorry." She used the same lisp before walking out of the coffee shop. Much later that night, Joey, Ross, Rachel and I were in Monica's apartment with her. Joey and I were eating pie, Ross was looking at a picture of his dog, Rachel was flipping through a magazine, and Monica was changing in her room.
"Let it go, Ross." Joey told him while I tried to steal a piece of his slice of pie.
"Yeah, well, you didn't know Chi Chi." He spit back. Once I finished up my portion of the pie, Joey and I switched plates. He would always leave me the crust, and I would leave him the rest. Even though he liked the entire pie, he'd do this for me since I only like the crust.
"Do you all promise?" We heard Monica call out to us.
"Yeah, we promise." All of us yelled to her slightly annoyed by the constant asking.
"We'll be good." Ross added.
"Chandler, do you promise to be good?" She asked my brother, who was smoking outside on her balcony. He crossed his heart. Suddenly, it started to pour, so he banged on the window.
"You can come in, but your filter–tipped little buddy stays outside." I shouted so he could hear. He glared at me before grabbing the top of a trash can and holding it above his head. Then, Phoebe walked into the apartment.
"Hey, Pheebs!" Joey smiled back at her. She sat down next to me with a letter in her hands.
"'Dear Ms. Buffay: Thank you for calling attention to our error. We have credited your account $500. We're sorry for the inconvenience and hope you'll accept this...'" She pulled something out of her purse. "'...this football phone...'" She held it up. "'...as our free gift'. Do you believe this?" She exclaimed. "Now I have a football phone and $1,000."
"What bank is this?" Rachel came over and grabbed the letter from the table. When we heard a buzzer, Monica immediately stood up.
"Okay, that's him." She said before pressing the button on the intercom. "Who is it?"
"Alan." Her date's voice came out with static.
"Chandler, he's here!" Joey called out to my brother. We watched him put the trash can top back on the trash can.
"Please be good, please." Monica practically begged us. "Just remember how much you all like me?" Phoebe and I sat at the table while the other surrounded us. Joey kept a hand on my shoulder, and I put my hand on top of his. She opened up the door. "Hi, Alan, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Alan." She introduced us.
"Hi." He smiled at us and greeted us politely.
"Hi, Alan." We nodded our heads.
"I've heard scho musch about all you guys." He said with a fake lisp, making us all laugh. By the time Monica came back from her date, I had gone back to my apartment and changed into a Knicks sweatshirt and pajama pants.
"Okay, let's let the Alan–bashing begin." She turned to us after closing the door. "Who's going to take the first shot?" We all stayed quiet. "Come on."
"I'll go." Ross cleared his throat. "Let's start with the way he kept picking at...you know, I can't do this, I'm sorry." Ross shook his head.
"We loved him!" We all cheered and started asking her questions.
"We're talking about someone that I'm going out with?" She couldn't stop smiling.
"Yes!" We all said at the same time.
"And did you notice?" Rachel held up the thumb to index finger thing. Chandler, Joey, and Ross instantly got uncomfortable.
"You know what was great? The way his smile was crooked." Joey asked.
"Like the man in the shoe!" Phoebe pointed at Joey and exclaimed.
"What shoe?" I furrowed my brows.
"From the nursery rhyme. 'There was a crooked man who had a crooked smile who lived in a shoe for a...while'." She stopped when she realized what she was saying.
"Alan is definitely going to be the bar you are setting for all future boyfriends." Ross walked over to the kitchen.
"What future boyfriends?" Rachel asked him.
"I think this could be..." I trailed off. Rachel and I held Monica's hands and squealed.
"Really?" Monica looked between the two of us.
"I'd marry him just for his David Hasselhoff impression alone." Chandler interjected. "You know I"m going to be doing that at parties, right?" My brother did the impersonation.
"You know what I liked most about him though?" Ross spoke up.
"What?" The rest of us glanced back at him.
"The way he makes me feel about myself." Ross held a bottle of apple juice. We all agreed with him. I sat back down next to Joey, who brought me into his side.
The next day, I headed over to Central Perk to see the rest of the gang already there.
"A thumb?" Ross exclaimed, making me confused as hell. The group then exclaimed in disgust.
"Did I miss something?" I sat in between Joey and Ross on the couch.
"Phoebe here found a thumb in her soda." Chandler explained to me without throwing in a joke or a sarcastic comment for once.
"Want to see?" She held up the can of soda.
"I'm good." I quickly blurted out with my hands out in front of me.
"Maybe it's a contest. Like, collect all five." Chandler suggested. And there's the joke. Then, he put a cigarette in between his lips and brought out a lighter.
"Hey, don't do that. Put that out. Come on! It's worse than the thumb." We said different things at the same time to get him to stop.
"This is so unfair." He took it out of his mouth.
"Why is it unfair?" I flailed my arms around.
"So I have a flaw? Big deal!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Like Joey's constant knuckle cracking isn't annoying? And Ross who over–pronounces every word. And Monica with that snort when she laughs? I mean what the hell is that. And Suparna always plays with the ends of her hair." He pointed out a flaw in each one of us. "I accept those flaws. Why can't you accept me for this?" We all stayed quiet instead of answering.
"Does the knuckle cracking bother everybody?" Joey looked at all of us.
"Well, I could live without it." Rachel leaned against the back of the couch.
"Oh. Well, is it, like, a little annoying or is it like Phoebe chews her hair?" Joey asked.
"Now, don't listen to him, Pheebs. I think it's endearing." Ross reassured her.
"You do, do you?" I enunciated every syllable much like him.
"At least I don't twirl pieces of my hair to flirt with people." Ross shot back. That made Monica laugh, which made the snort come out.
"You know, there's nothing wrong with speaking correctly." Ross sat up straight.
"Indeed, there isn't." Rachel replied in his way. "I should really get back to work."
"Otherwise someone might get what they actually ordered." Phoebe spoke up.
"The hair comes out, and the gloves come off." Rachel walked back to the group. We all started to argue with each other. I was at my apartment when Monica dragged me over to hers.
"Why am I being dragged here? I was going to watch many, many episodes of Three's Company." I groaned as she made me sit dow next to a still wet Joey.
"Nothing, I think it's nice that we're all here together." She replied before turning off the TV, making us yell in response. "Please, guys, we have to talk." She stood in the front.
"Wait, wait. I'm getting a deja vu." Phoebe pointed at Monica. "No, I'm not."
"Alright, we have to talk. It's about Alan. There's something that you should know. I mean, there's really no easy way to say this." She stayed silent for a couple of moments. "I've decided to break up with Alan." We all gasped in shock, holding onto each other for support.
"Is there somebody else?" Ross asked his sister.
"No, no, no, no. It's just...you know, things change, people change." She tried to explain.
"We didn't change.' Rachel looked back at the rest of us.
"So that's it? It's over?" Joey leaned back against the couch. "Just like that?"
"You know, you let your guard down. You know, you start to really care about someone, and I just...I..." Phoebe put her hair in her mouth.
"Look, I can go on pretending...but that wouldn't be fair to me, it wouldn't be fair to Alan. It wouldn't be fair to you." She pointed at us.
"Well, who wants fair?" Ross stood up. "I mean, I just want things back, you know. The way they were." He put his hands on his hips while standing next to Monica.
"I'm sorry." She looked at her older brother apologetically.
"She's sorry. I feel so much better." I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest.
"I just can't believe this. I mean, with the holidays coming up. I wanted him to meet my family." Rachel's voice broke.
"I'll meet someone else." Monica suggested. "There'll be other Alans." We scoffed and yelled out stuff at her. Then, we went quiet. "Are you guys going to be okay?"
"Hey, we'll be fine." Ross walked over to the other side of the room. "We're just going to need a little time." He leaned against the bathroom door.
"I understand." Monica nodded her head before leaving. We sat around the dining table and pigged out on ice cream, frosting, and cake.