When you hear ‘pudding’, you’re bound to ask “Yum! What flavor?”
This time, though, you best not ask (and you’re welcome for the favor…)
“The sign of a true friend is…’pudding on a condom for Phillip’?!? Um…I have so many questions that I’m not sure I want the answer to.”
My beautiful bride looked up from my phone, wide-eyed and side-eyeing me at the same time. She had been poking around my Notes app looking for my grocery list, and instead she apparently found my reminder where I keep a short list of potential stories to blog about in the coming weeks.
“That doesn’t sound quite right…lemme see that!”
I took a quick glance at it then got my eyes back on the road like the safe driver that I was.
“Ahh, I see, it’s just a typo,” I reassured her.
“Whew! No condoms were involved. That’s a relief,” she demurred.
“Oh, no, there was a condom alright.”
“So, it’s supposed to be ‘putting’? ‘Putting on a condom’ for your male friend is any better?!? Is there something you need to get off your chest, my dear hubby? You been keeping any skeletons in the ol’ proverbial closet?”
“What? No, no, no. I meant that the it was supposed to in, not on,” I clarified.
“Hold up, mister! ‘Pudding on a condom’ was a gross enough mental picture, and you mean to tell me what you wanted to describe was ‘pudding in a condom’?!? You’re one sick puppy” she deftly passed judgement on me.
“No, no–“
“Wait just one sec,” she interrupted my rebuttal and proceeded to open up the car door and wretch lightly.
“You’re lucky we’re at a stoplight,” I said in an attempt to implicitly reassure the Reader that I didn’t marry a woman who would have such poor executive function as to open the door while in a moving vehicle.
“Are you done ye–“
She held up her hand to stop me as she went for one last round:
*gaaaaaaag!*
“You’re such a drama queen,” I commented once she was done with her over-the-top expression of disgust. “And for the record, ‘pudding’ was a typo, too. I guess I got double autocorrected when I hastily made that note.”
“Oh great,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Lemme guess: I’m going to have to wait in suspense to find out what you really meant while you regale whoever will listen with another one of your trademark ‘short-story-long’ tales…”
“Hey, man, can you come over? I’m kinda in a pickle and really was hoping you could do me a favor.”
A little over a year after my ol’ buddy, Phillip K. Ballz, tried to sabotage my post-college career, I got a somewhat desperate sounding phone call from him. We had hung out on occasion since that particular incident–we both still lived in Manhattan after graduating from Kansas State–so it wasn’t completely abnormal for him to blow up my phone. However, I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t his usual laid-back self.
“Yeah, sure thing, amigo. I’ll be right over,” I said, blindly agreeing to whatever.
On the drive over, I mused to myself about the possible nature of his request.
“I probably better stretch my back first thing–it’s still a little tweaked from that one reckless round of disc golf, and I bet he needs my help moving a piano or some other heavy object.”
“Or maybe he needs my help giving Da Vinci, his cat with 6 fingers on each paw, a bath?”
“Oh, the possibilities are endless–but the truth is probably something completely asinine,” I thought as I got out of the car, somehow switching gears from bright-eyed imaginative optimism to overly-honest cynicism in the same mental breath.
“Jeez, there you are! Did you get lost on the way over here? Took you long enough!” PKB greeted me, clearly in the early stages of panic mode.
“I mean, I got a little lost in thought, maybe, but I otherwise came straight over here. What’s up?” I quipped, then inquired.
“Dude, so you know how I’m on probation, right?”
“Yeah, I’m mildly aware that you got into trouble with the law over some stupid recreational drug-related incident. So what about it?” I asked.
“Well, I have to take a certain test every couple months, if you know what I mean.”
“Really? That’s a condition of your parole?”
“My probation, not parole, you jackass. And yes, if I don’t keep my nose clean, then I’ll actually have to serve some time in the county jail,” he said with all seriousness.
“Well, good thing you know they’re going to test you in advance, right?”
His lack of response was starting to unsettle me.
“Right?”
The look on his face said it all.
“You really are a proper dipshit, aren’t you? You mean to tell me that your dumb ass knew that you would get thrown in the can if you done and went and smoked a fat blunt…and then you done went and smoked a fat blunt? Un-effing-believable.”
“Look, it was several weeks ago, and it should have been out of my system by now, but when I took a home version of the test, it still showed up. You gotta help a brother out, man!” he begged of me.
“Uh, I don’t know what I could possibly do to help you out of this j–“
“You can pass the test for me, that’s what!” he said, interrupting me.
“Wait, what? Oh. I see…Well, you’re not going make me complicit in your illicit activities! I’m a man of honor and integrity! You can get one of your other heathen buddies to do it, and leave me out of this!”
PKB looked at me like I was dumb as a rock.
“All my other friends are potheads like me–you’re the only friend I have around these parts that hasn’t gotten high in the last two weeks!”
“Oh,” was all I could muster.
You can’t argue with airtight logic like that.
“So…what do you need me to do?” I asked resignedly. I couldn’t stand by and let one of my oldest friends go to jail for a crime he did commit.
“Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said.
I looked down at the box he had just handed me.
“You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered.1See the note at the end about the alternate ending that splits off at this point. “You could have at least got me some Magnums–I’m a ‘bigger’ guy, if you know what I mean.”
“Dammit, I got my test in less than 40 minutes, so forgive me if I don’t have time for your weird flex. Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently.
I didn’t bother shutting the bathroom door behind me to make sure he could hear everything.
“You know what they say really is true: size does matter…” I hollered across the house.
“Just shut your pie-hole and keep pissing in the condom!” PKB so rudely interrupted my punchline.
Nevertheless, I persisted: “…and you’re in luck cuz’ this big boy’s got a big ol’ bladder…”2As promised, here’s the original/alternate ending before I changed it at the last second.:
“Here you go. And you know where the bathroom is,” he said.
I looked down at the box he had just handed me.
“You gotta be ----- kidding me,” I muttered.
“Make it snappy though–I got my test in 45 minutes.”
“What the hell, Phillip? Cutting it kinda close, aren’t we?” I said somewhat incredulously, as I had no idea how close his head was to the chopping block. “Dammit, last thing I needed was pressure–you know I’m bladder-shy!” I said.
“Just go take care of business, will ya?” PKB said impatiently.
I skulked off to the bathroom, but intentionally left the door open so he could hear me when I loudly proclaimed, “I feel like this is a good time force some of The Jesus on you–and I quote: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life be pissing in a condom for his friends.’ This is literally What Jesus Would Do.”
“So, what’s your point, my dude?” he hollered back at me.
“Well,” I yelled, leaning back so my head was poking out the open bathroom door, “as The Jesus always says: ‘You’re welcome, you ----- dirty hippie…’ “
Content created on: 6/8/9 June 2024 (Thurs/Sat/Sun)
Footnotes & References:
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