The Price of Friendship

I had just finished delivering an order to a customer making their day. It was cold, really cold, and raining with a threat of snow. The wind was strong enough to make me wobble outside of my car. Instead of turning off Highway 99 for Milton, I continued on to the Poodle Dog. Inside I took a seat by the window and ordered coffee and a generous portion of corned beef hash served with three fried eggs, hash browns and biscuits with gravy. I figured whatever I didn’t eat my husband would.

The coffee went down nicely and had been warming me up. I was into my second cup when something whizzed past the window going left. I stopped a sip from the second cup as the something whizzed past the window going right. On the third whiz I was able to make out a young girl with trouble on her face and tears running down both cheeks.

I let my waitress know I wasn’t leaving and stepped out the entrance and looked left and right, but this time the girl was coming back straight from the eighteen wheeler covered road. I stood and waited as the girl ran into me blinded by the tears in her eyes. I hugged her like a mother to calm her down. She fought me off and then gave up and melted into my arms. We walked back to the restaurant and sat down at my table. My guess was a girl in either the 8th or 9th grade.

In between tears, sniffing, and worry (both her’s and mine), I was able to piece together a minor problem that was obviously a major problem to her. There was to be a gathering at the end of school today. Her teacher was getting married on Saturday and the kids from her class had a photo taken of the entire class as a surprise. The kids had all signed their names by their images. Marybeth, the little girl I had taken in my arms, had taken the autographed photo home and had then paid for a hundred copies to share with their teacher and other people at the wedding which was going to be somewhere on the peninsula. The other students had donated money for getting the copies, which came out nicely, but on the way to school (just over the freeway) a gust of wind had torn away the file folder and scattered the photos. Marybeth ran down the file folder and had been picking up the photos, but the wind kept ripping them away. Looking at what Marybeth had in her folder we both knew the collection was ruined.

Seeing the tears and listening to the sniffing I finally got her to calm down a bit. I asked her if she had ever heard the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” She looked bewildered and then said a little snottily, “What difference does it make? My dad’s going to kill me. He paid a small fortune for those copies.”

I recognized the problem and ignored the snotism, and said, “My husband and I own a printer business just down the street a little ways. How about I drop you off at school, we print up the photos at no charge and bring them back to the school before you present the photo gift?” Marybeth stopped in mid-sniff, wiped the tears off her face with my napkin and a little gravy smear. I wiped off the gravy for her. She said “How can I ever thank you and your husband?” I said, “A hug is all I need. I’ve been there before . . . I don’t think my husband needs a hug, but will probably be proud of our effort.”