Foundations of Friendship

This is a story of true friendship and/or trickery and deception.

It all started back on Oct 4, the day of the blizzard.  Mom burned her thumb on bacon grease.  She sent me this picture.

She wanted some sympathy since no one at her house was offering any.  I told her it looked awful and she should have it looked at.  She said all the roads were closed so she was out of luck.  Eventually it did get better despite the lack of medical attention.  Just more evidence that my mother is one tough cookie.

Fast forward several weeks……

My friend, Kara, and I usually spend Wednesday nights at church and part of that time is spent making snacks for middle school kids. This particular night Kara was not there (she had some excuse, like a sick child or something lame like that).  And, as it turned out, I had to bake chocolate chip cookies for 75 or 80 or 200 (it was a lot at any rate) hungry and impatient middle schoolers.  The dough was pre-made and I just had to plop on the cookie sheet and there was another volunteer nearby who could (and did) pop in and give me hand from time to time but lets focus on the fact that Kara was not there, shall we.

Try as I might, I could not find the hot pads when the time came to take the cookies out of the oven (turns out they were in the drawer the whole time) so I tried to use a dishcloth.  Here’s something good to know, a dishcloth does not offer the same protection that a hot pad might when pulling a cookie sheet out of a hot oven.

I burnt my thumb and it really, really hurt.  It wasn’t quite as bad as Mom’s but still I wanted to cry for a second.  Then I looked around and saw 60 some middle schoolers looking at me and I knew I couldn’t cry.  Middle schoolers are a lot like bees and dogs, they can smell fear and weakness.  So, I swallowed my pain and went about dishing out cookies.

Kara texted me later asking how it went.  So, I told her it went pretty well but that I did burn my finger.  And then I texted her the picture of Mom’s finger….

Mom’s thumb

She immediately called in a panic, asking if she should take me to urgent care and apologizing up and down for not being there to help me find the hot pads.  I started laughing and then texted her a picture of my finger.  Then she called me a name, which was not very nice, and hung up on me.

My thumb. If you look closely you can see where it’s red.

But, here’s the thing.  She got even with me.  A few weeks later she said, “hey do you want to sign up for a kettle bell class with me?”  “Sure!” I say, “what is it?”  Kara said, “oh it’s once a week for just a half hour, a strengthening class, nothing to intense, like an entry level type of class”

She lied.  She swears she didn’t know but I’m not so sure.

It is not a “thirty minute kettle bell class”.  No, it is a 60 minute kettle bells/boot camp/ body torture class.  This week we did, among other things, 50 burpees….for a warm up!  There was more after that but my memory is foggy from the lack of oxygen because I could barely breathe because I was trying not to throw up.  I hope to be able to walk without pain sometime in 2014.  So, I’d say she got even with me.  I think we should just call a truce at this point.  At least until I come up with a way to get back at her.

Trickery and deception, the foundations of lifelong friendship, don’t you think?