oi oi oi.

lately i've been thinking about what makes ben wygant ben wygant. call it an identity crisis. call it shameless self-infatuation. call it a quarter life crisis. call it a poorly executed and mildy embarassing john mayer reference. whatever it is, it's kind of eating at me, like i imagine the ebola virus would if i had been unfortunate enough to get monkey-bit in the last few months. the conclusion that i've come to recently is that my friends hone my character. they were each a part of my formation. every one of them in some way has contributed to the development of my identity. large parts of who we are seems to be small pieces of the people we call friends.

in honor of these dear people, here is a very very short list of people that i haven't seen/talked to/credit-carded/awkwardly sniffed/hugged for way too long/elaborately high-fived/cuddled with/ball-tapped/sang to/sang with/laughed with or at/shared a milk shake with in a long time:

- katie grace wygant. the younger sister. in every high school girl i work with, i see katie. therefore, i must restrain myself from killing their respective boyfriends. katie's cooler than i will ever be and has more balls than i could ever hope for. she once smoked a cigarette while single-handedly fileting a live polar bear.
- sarah wygant. the older sister. funny like snl in the 70's. bulletproof liver. once went shot for shot with ted kennedy and john daily. they now address her as "your highness".
- nate scott. one time nate and i ran a marathon together. with a 3 miles left to go, nate gets a cramp and tells me to keep going. he falls roughly a half mile behind. at mile 25 nate streaks past me screaming, "if i slow down i won't make it!!!! yyyyeaaauuuugggghhhhrrrrr!!!!" i sputter something that sounded like, "pblbiarrrah....", shuffle the next mile point six, and drool all over my t-shirt.
- tommy burkholder. tommy is my staple "person of Christ" club talk story dude. tommy and i roomed together in college. tommy played world of warcraft. tons of warcraft. sometimes tommy would walk to class. that's the most i saw tommy move for about 2 years. then i went skiing with tommy. immediately tommy busts a 540 off of the tabletop at tussey mountain. flawless. i begin to consider joining tommy's warcraft guild so that i too might be freaking awesome.
- danny rose. one time i almost blew up a tanker truck while riding in danny's car. and yet danny still talks to me. i put about 20,000 miles on danny's ultima in college. and yet danny still talks to me. every paper danny wrote from his sophomore year on took him twice as long as it should have because i would sit behind him on his bed and bust his balls for trying so hard in school. and yet danny still talks to me. on several hundred occasions, danny would wake up in the middle of the night with me lying next to him with a menacing look on my face followed by 5 minutes of intensive, brutal, relentless tickling... sometimes ending in a bloody nose. and yet danny still talks to me. danny helped me create "the london bridge". and yet danny still talks to me.
- tasha bruinsma. tasha sometimes pretended to be a dinosaur when life got too serious at windy gap. sometimes she would follow me around at an awkwardly close distance for no reason. tasha looks like a possum. look at tasha's hands... they're strong hands.
- garrett mccandless. one time garrett smoked 24 cigarettes at once. we peed from the top of nearly every bridge in venango county. he's going to be a doctor. he has agreed to perform all of my prostate exams for the rest of my life. he is required to come up with new jokes every time he does it.
- sean michael murphy. murph is responsible, in large part, for teaching me how to follow Jesus. he's also responsible for the disappearing thumb trick that i do when club talks get awkward. he also owes me $8 because paul mccartney does indeed play the drums.
- bjorn trowery. anyone who witnesses a conversation between bjorn and i for the first time automatically assumes that we're either, a). high, b). insane, c). 4 years old, d). european, or e). hitting on each other using an obscure african click language. only c is true.
- anthony barlich. barlich and i lifted together a lot. he taught me how to grow facial hair. we have deep life assessment conversations and then hug it out like straight up heterosexual men should.
- steve feather. i met steve when we were in 6th grade. he was wearing a jason kidd jersey. he was pastier and nerdier than i was, so we found a common bond in the hopelessness of knowing that we'd never be cool. then, for the next 10 years, girls repeatedly ruined our lives by existing. now at 24, i'm married and steve is engaged. and we're still not cool.
- evan story. together, evan and i explored the hippie/liberal/northern side of following Jesus (meaning we refused to wear seersucker to church). i had the priviledge and honor of helping to write evan's college entrance essay. he now attends the university of tennessee and makes billy graham look like clown shoes.
- sarah walsh. swalsh is sweeter than chocolate covered chocolate wrapped in chocolate and delivered by a chocolate lab. she is responsible for introducing me to the 3rd greatest love of my life, chic-fil-a. some day, swalsh, the wife, me, and a bunch of other people on this list will live in a big house and play a lot of frisbee golf together. in colorado. next to a chic-fil-a.
- kyle taylor. kyle and i compressed a lifetime of friendship into the past 5 years. i wrecked his car, cemented myself to his front porch, crossed the country with him, refused to wear pants in nebraska with him, climbed rocks with him, saved his wife from certain death, went to philly in the middle of the night just for a cheesesteak with him, and watched waaaaaaay too much homestar runner with him. kyle is the reason i have a recreation, parks and tourism management degree from penn state. he is also the reason i am now late to everything.
- karl fisher. my first experience with karl was taking a handful of jr. high kids to rockbridge for young life camp after my freshman year of college. like clockwork, each day we'd run to our cabin and destroy adjoining bathroom stalls while karl read out loud from the john eldredge classic, "wild at heart". now i work for young life and can't read "wild at heart" without reading it with karl's voice in my head.
- allison andrea antonia hemphill. half pint. my sidekick all through college. never have i met someone so small who can simultaneously absorb and dish out so much sass. junior year we used her for her dorm washing machine. we ate all her food. i stole 99% of her pistachios. her nickname is lady boxington. i still can't stand the way she says "dad" and "basketball". her dog humped me awake one time when i was sleeping in her living room.
- dong kim. my roommate sophomore year. one time a half naked chick got in bed with him for no reason at 4am on a tuesday night. he was terrified. she was hammered. i was rolling on the floor crying tears of elation. i'm pretty sure he still has nighmares. he's going to be a doctor too. since my prostate is already reserved for garrett, dong can have all of my ingrown toenails.
- steve kelly. sensitive steve. pretty much taught me how to play guitar, interact with attractive strangers, create fun nicknames for sexual activities, and get sensitive while listening to reggie and the full effect's "megan 2k2". the combination of steve kelly, dong kim, ben wygant, jon rys, and chicken finger wraps is deadly.



to be continued...