Assembly line friendship

Carmen arrived at noon with three Target bags full of party supplies and announced we had exactly four hours to transform my living room into “engagement party perfection” for Sarah. I pointed out that Sarah specifically said she wanted something low-key. Carmen held up a bag of gold confetti and gave me a look that said I clearly didn’t understand the assignment.

Assembly line friendship

Two hours later we’d turned into a surprisingly efficient decoration team. Carmen has this thing where she gets genuinely competitive about balloon placement, which I discovered when she climbed onto my couch to adjust the arch for the third time. “It needs to be symmetrical, Elena. Sarah will notice.” She’s probably right.

The assembly line phase required serious focus

The party favor assembly required the kind of focus usually reserved for final exams. Carmen insisted each bag needed exactly three chocolates, two mints, and a thank-you note tied with ribbon. I suggested we skip the ribbon. She looked at me like I’d suggested we skip the engagement entirely.

Jake walked through twice offering to help and got immediately assigned to “staying out of the way.” Smart man. Sarah’s going to cry when she sees all this, and Carmen’s going to pretend she didn’t spend an hour perfecting the angle of each streamer.