A Friend’s Final Request

 

A friend of Life in the Boomer Lane brought up a very serious issue at their breakfast out, the other day. For those of you who are now completely distracted by the word “breakfast,” and want all the details, LBL will say that she had scrambled eggs (soft scrambled) and coffee. Nothing more. That is because she was anticipating going out to dinner with another friend that evening. She understands that readers were hoping for more, but this post is about something else, entirely. So, get over it.

LBL’s friend told LBL that she had something very important to discuss.  Anticipating her death (her own, not LBL’s), she needed LBL to take certain action, as a favor to her. (It should be noted her that her friend is perfectly healthy, aside from a serious issue understanding pronouns). She gave LBL the code to access her home (Note to Readers: LBL will not, under any circumstances, reveal this code. So don’t even try. Unless you offer a lot of money. And, for even more money, LBL will tell you the name of her friend.)

She instructed LBL to access her house and head directly to the closet and locate a certain patchwork bag hanging from the inside of the door and to take the bag and dispose of it as far away from the house as she could. LBL was told not to open the bag, but to simply dispose of it.

Needless to say, LBL was consumed with thoughts of what was in the bag. But, being the good friend she is, she never, at any moment, considered ending her friend’s life in order to find out. Instead, she asked, “Sex toys?”  Her friend nodded and added “and weed.” considering the import of what she had just heard, LBL, of course, agreed to accommodate her friend. The breakfast was completed, and LBL went to her car.  She’ll admit that for the entire way home, her brain swirled with various questions and thoughts.

The first was why anyone would still be possession of a patchwork bag, at least four decades after such bags went out of fashion. The second was relief that since LBL doesn’t smoke weed, her friend had never asked her to join her in such pursuit. The thought of smoking weed that had been commingling with sex toys wasn’t one that would have ruined any high that she might have potentially had.

But the worst thought, by far, concerned one of LBL’s grandchildren.  LBL has just returned from two weeks in Seattle, where she stayed with her son and his family. She brought books for her three-year-old granddaughter. The most popular book by far was one titled “Jack and the Flum Flum Tree,” a rhyming story about a boy whose grandmother developed a case of the “moozles” and the only cure was to eat the fruit from the flum flum tree. Jack prepares to sail to the island containing the flum flum tree, in order to get the fruit. His grandmother gives him a patchwork sack, filled with various random items which will, as the story goes along, help him on his journey. As Jack and his friends have troubles along the way, Jack repeatedly declares “Don’t get your knickers in a twist! Let’s have a look in the patchwork sack!”

LBL might never be able to read that book to her granddaughter again.