Flashback Friday

Many of the blogs I read have a Flashback Friday- they post an old picture or story and usually it is rather embarrassing in nature. (What old prom picture isn't embarrassing??)
In the spirit of Flashback Friday, I am going to tell you a semi-famous family story from when I was in sixth grade.
First a little background: When I was in fifth grade, I went to a very good elementary school that had a rural segment of its population. One of the girls I became friends with was named Karen. (I will not disclose her last name to help her remain anonymous. Heehee.) She was a very nice girl but it was clear she was poor and had limited resources of every kind. But she was fun and sweet and a bit dramatic, as most fifth grade girls are. She invited me to her birthday party that year, and my mom tells me it was the most nervous she's ever been to leave me somewhere. Her home was a glorified shack with a broad, unfinished front porch- just a plywood platform-and she had various animals roaming around her property. I'm not sure if she had a dad and her mom looked pretty marginal. I distinctly remember that at the birthday party her mom wore a see-through shirt with no bra and I was both fascinated and horrified at that. Her mom also wore a '70s style floppy fedora hat, which to me now indicates that she thought she had it goin' on back then. I was also quite shocked by their fishtank, which was so filled with algae that you literally couldn't see the fish in it. The most memorable part of the story was that one point of the party, a goat was walking around their living room. In the house. Yeah.
Oh.. and noone was screaming, "Ahhh! Get the goat out of the house!! The goat got loose from it's pen and somehow came inside the house!" It was more like, "Move over, Goat, I can't see Karen opening her gifts." So you get the picture.
Let me share one more piece of info critical to this story: for those of you who read my blog but are not familiar with this area, there is a small city about 30 minutes west of Albany called Amsterdam. It is not a prosperous city and it has a large Hispanic population and a large poor area. I'm sure there are nice parts of it, but I don't think at any time it would be heralded as a jewel in the Capital District.
So fast forward to sixth grade. We students who attended our small little rural school have stuck together pretty well, and I am still good friends with Karen. Just before lunch that day, Karen calls home on the pay phone (how quaint!) near the cafeteria and her mother gives her terrible news... they are moving in a few weeks. She is very upset at this and of course we, her friends, comfort her and feel sad that we will be losing our buddy.
That afternoon, I am recounting the events of the day to my mom, who would listen to HOURS of me discussing and processing my days at school. I tell my mom, quite dramatically, that Karen has received this devastating news: "Karen is moving... to the Netherlands!!"
"Say that again?" my mom replies.
"Karen called her mom and her mom said she's moving to the Netherlands."
Clearly confused, my mom says to me, "Tell me exactly what Karen's mom said to her."
"She said they are moving to Amsterdam."
Ahhhh... this makes much more sense. Now as an adult I realize how absolutely hilarious it is to think a rural girl with a braless single mother who had a goat in her living room during her birthday party would have the resources- both economic and intellectual- to move to a liberal European nation. I am also impressed with my knowledge of European geography.
Anyway, Karen moved - to Amsterdam, NY- and I never saw her again. But I laugh everytime I think of this story.