My mom won't let me forget this as she brings up the "chicken nugget" incident all the time. In middle school during the summers, to fill our time, my mom would always convince a bunch of my close friends' moms to enroll in the same PSAT prep course as me. So the four of us would all go together and have a grand time goofing off and learning some new vocab here and there. One time, my mom picked us up and took us to McDonald's on the way home. My three girlfriends sat in the backseat while my mom and I sat in the front.
My mom pulled over to the side of the McDonald's and instructed me to get a box of 20 chicken nuggets for everyone to share.
"Do you want to go with me to get it?" I asked my friend who was sitting behind the passenger side of the vehicle. At the time, my mom drove the oldest model of the Odyssey which had doors that opened outwards instead of the awesome automatic sliding doors they now come equipped with. This makes a difference because it would have been dangerous for girlfriend A on the left behind the driver to open her door since the McDonald's was on a busy street and cars were zooming by. Girlfriend C who sat on the far right looked bored and muttered, "No," an answer I wasn't quite expecting at the time. I was a bit baffled to be honest. Who says no? Girlfriend B who sat in the middle piped up, "I'll go with you," which made me think for a brief second that Girlfriend C and B would come with me. Or maybe all three would go and it'd be a group outing.
Instead, Girlfriend C stepped out of the car, held the door open for Girlfriend B to move out, and then got back into the car to sit in her new seat in the middle.
To be honest, I didn't think it was a big deal at the time.
My mom didn't say anything in the car, but the moment we got home, she started to lecture me about how inappropriate Girlfriend C had been, reminding me that Girlfriend B was a true friend, and Girlfriend A was just oblivious.
"It's one thing to be lazy and not want to go with you, but it's an entirely different level of lazy and added level of disrespect when you get out of the car to let someone else go, and then get back into the car."
I've always contemplated, maybe she wasn't feeling well or maybe something else was bugging her. Should we be that judgmental? Should she have known the proper social decorum when she was only 13 or 14? I'm not quite sure what to think, but my mom's continued critique of this friend surely resonated with me. I'd never show it on the outside, but on the inside, I thought twice, and in many ways, I trusted her instincts even if I'd never admit it.
But it wasn't just what she said about Girlfriend C that meant anything. She also told me you could tell Girlfriend B was someone important. Girlfriend B was one to befriend forever. And through our ups and downs over 25 years, Girlfriend B has remained on my side, so that much is true. So I suppose my mom was right.
No comments:
Post a Comment