What Friends Are For
Friends. We’ve all got them. We all need them. They come in various shapes and sizes. Some are close, some are casual, most are somewhere in between. They’re nice to have for a lot of reasons, especially in a pinch. And pinches come in all shapes and sizes, too. This is a little story about friends who helped me in a pinch yesterday, and it was an odd pinch, and probably not much of a pinch at all, small actually.
It started when I went to my pantry to get a can of black-eyed peas. It wasn’t there. Not unusual in my circumstances. My recently departed wife would have handled that. At first, I thought, who needs them. It’s a holiday superstition and I’m a 21st century guy. This is a new day and time. But then I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything if I bowed to the tradition. So, I went to the local supermarket. Guess what? They were out. Totally. No cans. No frozen. No nothing. As I got in my car, however, a thought occurred to me. I had friends just down the road who might have black-eyed peas. I called.
When the husband answered the phone, I told him I had a crazy question, built totally on the supposition that he and his wife had eaten black-eyed peas for lunch. They had. I asked if I could borrow some, which is a crazy term we use in a situation like this, because we know they’ll be eaten and never given back. He laughed, and asked if I wanted some cornbread, too. I said, I did. I drove over, he met me at the edge of the walk, handed over the goods. I went home and ate them. A friendship of longstanding was certified, and I’m ready for 2021. I hope everyone has friends who will give them black-eyed peas in a pinch and think it’s funny.