My best friend in the world is Jeannie Clarke, and she won't mind me saying that we've known each other since before mud; I mean, there was dirt before we met, sure, but it hadn't rained yet, and no one was really digging up crud at the bottom of the seas to make pies and facial packs with the stuff. I wanted to claim that we invented mud, but I can't do that with a straight face. We've been walking and talking for way too long together.
My bestie and I were taking a walk yesterday, here at my complex, because when she comes over of an evening on a Friday night, that's a really cool thing to do. We get in our 8000+ steps and we talk about ugly people; we do that to make fun of ourselves, I don't want you going off thinking that we're mean or anything. We are so not mean. Well, we are, but we're just mean for us, we don't tell the world what we think about a lot of things because we could possibly be banned from most places if anyone really heard how we talk to each other. Truth be told, we're more immature than mean.
So we're walking, and we're talking, and with every other step we take (mind you we're moving at a pretty fast clip) we are trying our best to avoid blue green crusty old and more squirty recent goose poops; it's that time of year. We're over there avoiding, over stepping, and bumping into each other and she asks me, "Hey, I can ask you, I saw this on Facebook and thought there is no way Jude would do that, but I would!" I asked her, "OK, what is it?" She went on to say that there was a question sort of quiz thing out on Facebook asking people if they would slap their best friend for $1000 cash. I told her no. I told her I wouldn't slap her for even much more, even a million dollars. It wouldn't happen. She laughed and told me I better slap the crap out of her for that much money, but it wasn't registering with her what I was saying.
Ethics are so important to me. To be called a friend, to be trusted, to be loved, to be honored to the point that I am one of very few people you could call upon to do just about anything, would negate any possible chance of me compromising my ethics and love for you; to trade that love, to trade that respect, to trade my personal ethics for money. I don't care how much the dollar amount is, no, the answer is, I'm not willing to compromise myself or my ethics to satisfy some random person's idea of what can be bought. At what point do we say enough is enough, and there are just some things that can't be purchased for sport? Jeannie was moved by my reasoning, but suggested an alternative; what if, she said, what if she wanted the money for herself and in order to get it I had to slap her. Well, OK, that's a little different. That puts the onus on her now, and it recreates the entire structure of the question. If that were the case, I would probably help her out, but I would never hurt her. I couldn't do that.
She stopped walking when she heard my answer. She thought about all that I had said, and she thanked me for not only being a good friend, but for being one who placed our relationship and years of trusting one another over a would be compromise. I asked her if she could slap me for the same amount of money, and she said, laughing, that she would do it for nothing actually - - what a good buddy! I now know that if I ever need my face slapped I have a good chance of seeing that happen and I won't have to pay for it; can you imagine going through life without a friend like Jeannie? She's the best!
We talked a bit more about it, and I explained why I don't ever want to compromise myself; it's more about being an example for my kids and being able to face Jesus in the future; she gets that, but decided that she could also see it as a way to make a little side money and not really have to do much more than ice her cheek for a few minutes. Well, if she is ever in the situation I'm sure another good friend will come to her rescue - - just not this one. Don't get me wrong, I'll be right next to Jeannie if and when she's arrested, it would probably be my fault anyway. I just won't slap her for someone else's pleasure.
What would you do?
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