True Story©... The Real Value of Friendship

 

    I've been away from y'all, but y'all have not been off my mind or out of my inbox.
Just for the record, y'know...

So at the beginning of March, I get an email in the Moe Phillips box with a request that kind of made my pressure go up a bit...

"Moe,

    My name is Belvin and I come to you with a quandary...

I have two female friends from college, my wife knows them well and they're both involved with their own guys. They're planning a trip to a cabin the first weekend of spring and have asked me along. I naturally declined, as we have small children in my house and I didn't want to be a fifth wheel.

Their explanation was that they wanted to spend the whole trip without having to exit the cabin except on foot, but none of them can cook well enough to make this work and that is where I come in, even offering to let me bring another friend from school to occupy me if the 'fifth wheel' thing was a concern. They FURTHER explained that I would not need to pay for anything, food/boarding/etc, but because of that they wouldn't only be getting a two bedroom cabin, which leaves me to sleep on the couch for the weekend.

My issue is the unmitigated gall of this request, which seems ever more ridiculous with every next sentence as I type. Am I tripping or no?"

    Look... I ain't a "phone call" kind of guy, but I responded by calling out to the phone number he left in the email and.

Belvin: "Hello, is this Moe?"

Me: "Yeah, it's me."

Belvin: "Thank God you called! So about the message, do y--..."

Me: "... fuck no you ain't trippin! Matterfact, don't even consider actually going on that trip."

Belvin: "Something about your voice when you said that..."

Me: "Look, I'm fuckin losing it on your behalf just reading this email again."

Belvin: "I see..."

Me: "What kind of 'friend' leaps to the lack of logic that allows one to ask some shit like that?"

Belvin: "Heard..."

Me: "... and they got boyfriends? What kind of dude allows his girl and her bestie to invite ANY other dick along on a couples trip for ANY reason?"

Belvin: "Agreed again."

Me: "So you're not going to go. You're not even going to agree to go."

Belvin: "What do I do then?"

Me: "Get your note pad out, this is gonna cost you about 30-40 bucks, but that'll be more than worth it to match the value they've shown you your friendship is to them."

Belvin: "Whoo boy!"

    Not to make this long story longer, I will just tell you here that I told Belvin step-by-step and day-by-day what to do for each step of the trip, what time of day to do what and how to shield himself from any fallout beyond what the events would actually cost him.
I finished with the explanation that it was all up to him whether or not he chose to go through with it, but I was not willing to go far enough to get my hands any dirtier than having said "do this."
With that said, I was safely insulated from what might happen if he did.

Did he do it?

To quote Mystikal, you fuckin right he did it!

I would find out this past week that he followed my instructions to a tee...

"Moe,

    This was a bit much to text and phone calls are for business only whenever possible, so I'm emailing you again to tell you how it went.

First, I had to decline the offer to attend in person two more times before they finally accepted it as just not happening. The last time I told them, like you told me to, that I'd make them the deal of making sure they had dinner, breakfast lunch and snacks from Friday evening to Sunday morning as my 'gift' to the excursion.

On Friday evening, I had doordash bring them a large flat of Ramen noodles and Beanie Weenies for dinner, plus a $4.95 bottle of Moscato from Total Wine. As soon as everything was confirmed delivered, I scheduled the breakfast Saturday delivery and powered my phone off.

Saturday morning, I turned my phone on long enough to confirm the delivery of store brand toaster pastries -- not even pop tarts -- and one quart of orange juice for the four of them and then I powered my phone back off as soon as I had made their 'lunch' order. Lunch was bologna and white bread, no condiments.

For dinner, I sent them the ultra classy Vienna sausages and saltine crackers. I jazzed it up this time with ginger ale, even springing for the Canada Dry mini cans! This time I didn't turn my phone off though, I just silenced the ringer and watched it blow up from 730pm until almost midnight with missed calls and 'WTF?' texts.

Since they were clearly unappreciative of my efforts to keep them fed Saturday, I overslept on Sunday and had forgotten their toaster pastries and OJ and damned if they didn't call to talk about it, waking me up from my Sunday slumber.

When they came down from the woods, they stopped at my house to confront me over this whole thing. They asked WHY I would offer to feed them, letting them think they would get something in line with what I might have cooked, but would just send them struggle food? As you had predicted, I was ready to respond by asking how long-time friends would treat me like the opps, in exchange for time away from my family, working me like the help and leaving me the worst accommodations to boot? I explained that I ain't some broke college kid anymore who can't afford a weekend in a cabin for myself and family and would not be treated like one.

Naturally they were less than pleased with this, telling me I could have said something to that effect. I explained that I tried nicely to decline the invite but it became a high pressure sale and she finally let it go...

By 'let it go' I mean 'blocked on all social media platforms and all our text bubbles turned green'.

I almost feel like I owe you a few dollars for leading me to just what it would cost to weed out what is or isn't a real friend.

Thanks."

No, Belvin... Thank you for letting me know I still got it.