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.