Best Friends Reunion in the Toyota Camry XSE. This post is sponsored by Toyota. All opinions are my own.

See that girl up there? I’m talking about the one with the trees behind her, acting like she’s all cool? Uh-huh! Her. That chic set my hair on fire! We were four. But, still! Oh, and she didn’t invite me to her birthday party, ate the last buffalo wing, and made me stuff her into a pull out sofa-bed and close it. Do they even make those anymore? Then she told her mom I tried to kill her! Don’t even bother asking her about these stories because she has some whack version of them all. Anyway, that’s Jessie. She’s my person. I’ve known her longer than I’ve known anyone in my life. When we were growing up in New York, our moms were friends. So, that meant that we had to be friends. Ya’ll know how that goes. You probably do it to your own kids.

Well, it stuck! I can’t and won’t imagine my life without her. We were due for a best friends reunion. She’s the one I talk to pretty much every day. Don’t think that’s an easy task for her. The truth is, she has to hear all the complaints. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I can’t come on here telling you all my daily dilemmas. You’d all find another blog to hang out on. Nope. I tell her. I’ve got stories. Just like everyone else. Except….sometimes mine are just unbelievable. 

No, I’m serious. UN-BELIEVABLE. She believes them though because she’s witnessed it all with me and will laugh me through it, make fun of me or support me if it’s really terrible, or great. I think a lot of my online friends and readers think I just have everything all together. I try. I’m just not as together as it might seem.

Stuff, usually funny in retrospect happens to me all the time. If I told her that I opened the door to check the mail and that it slammed behind me, locked me out of the house with barely any clothes on, so I walked around town barefoot trying to find a phone but couldn’t remember any numbers, then broke my ankle on the way back, and realized my car was stolen when I got home, but couldn’t call the police because I didn’t have a phone, she’d believe it. That wouldn’t be that strange to her. I mean, this is me we’re talking about. Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that happens. Maybe I should tell you all about these things when they happen. Who knows? You might get a good laugh out loud, too.

Like the other day, I was having a thing with my husband. We were both pretty annoyed with each other. I went to the store to get him some supplies to wash the car. When I got there, instead of going into the store, I played on Facebook in the parking lot for a little (long) while. I finally went into the store and realized I didn’t have my wallet. There was no way I was going home to tell my husband that I’d been gone forever and needed to go back. I was determined to pay, even though I had no money and no wallet, I had my phone! I tried to pay with Apple Pay, but the store didn’t accept it.

It took me an hour, but I was finally able to pay with no money, no credit cards and no ID. I ended up having to create a store account, put a credit card number on file, place an online order and then choose store pickup. Phew! It went through. Uh-oh. It wouldn’t “release” from the system. I can be pretty convincing when I need to be. So, I convinced the customer service rep to let me take my order and she would fix the system stuff later in the day when the order showed that it had been gathered. There was no way I was going home without the stuff. Still, l had to go to another store because the first one didn’t have everything I needed.

I went to Target. I have a store card and thought I could get customer service to let me pay with my Target card by verifying some information. Nope. Not even close. So, you know what I did? I convinced a young man to let me send him a PayPal payment and he paid for my transaction. That took a little while too, because it had been so long since he used PayPal that he didn’t remember his password and had to reset everything.

The other day when I told her that I’m opening a photography studio in less than thirty days and made the split-second decision while getting my grey covered at the salon, she didn’t even blink. She gets me. All in a single week, I decided to open a studio, signed the lease agreement and booked my first two professional events at different schools. I move fast. I can  be pretty decisive and determined to get my way. That’s why I love entrepreneurship. I decide that I want something and then I make it happen, one way or another! She always offers to help, too. I think the only hard thing about our relationship is that I hardly ever get to see her. She lives in Florida and I live in California, so it’s not exactly a drive away.

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Jessie, so as soon as I got confirmation that she was coming, I asked Toyota if I could check out a car fit for a wild weekend for our best friends reunion. You know, top open, pedal to the metal, diva mom style. Ooooh laaaa laaaa. Toyota came through! They sent me over the Toyota Camry XSE.

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Let the Best Friends Reunion Begin!

We broke the speed limit! One of the annoying teens kept reminding me that it was just five miles over the speed limit. Whatever. It was wild and we did gas it because this baby has power! We went on Star Wars themed dates with cute boys. Striking a pose all over town was our jam. We jammed to the 80’s music (that’s Jessie’s fault) on the stereo with the bumping JBL speakers. Bedtime? What’s that? We stayed up late until like, 11:00.

Fine! We’re not as wild as we used to be but being reunited felt like we were kids again. 

Of course, a best friends reunion wouldn’t be complete without a silly photo shoot. I think Jessie nailed the Forest Gump pose!

Okay, except that she couldn’t stop laughing!

Remember how I said she gets me? It’s true, but I might have forgot to mention that sometimes she looks at me like this!

Then she laughs again.

She barely left but I can’t wait for her to come back! In our youth, we spent a lot of time on the road together. Back then, we only had a hoopty! (It’s pretty much the opposite of the Toyota Camry XSE. With all the power of the Camry XSE, it still gets 26MPG. It has 10 airbags, blind spot monitoring, pedestrian detection and cross traffic alert. It also has wireless charging. What?! The sport tuned suspension and Direct Shift 8-Speed Transmission with Sequential Shift mode makes for amazing handling.

So, maybe we’re not as wild as we used to be, but we sure had a wild RIDE! When was the last time you had a Best Friends Reunion?

Be sure to follow Toyota on Facebook and Twitter, too! Have you ever surprised your family with a reunion? I’d love to know in the comments!

By: Alicia Gonzalez