The Vindication

My friend Chris and his dad had lent me twenty dollars on an outing one day. Chris’s dad was a high strung, tightly wound, hard-driving kind of guy. He worked in sales and travelled alot, and always seemed on the verge of losing his temper. He and Chris’s mom were having marital difficulties but were hanging in there. Having said that about them, Chris’s family was not unlike a lot of families in those days or these days for that matter, but I just happened to get an inside look at his family because he was my friend and I hung out some at his house. Anyway I was a college student when we went on the outing together and I was short on cash. Chris’s dad said they would never see the money they loaned me again. I wasn’t aware he had said that, but I knew I needed an on-campus job, and I got one to help with my college expenses. I’m sure it was out of one of those small paychecks from the part-time work in the dining hall or the library that I came up with the twenty dollars to repay Chris. I had made a mental note to do so, and I think I sent it off to him in the mail fairly promptly. There were certainly lots of questionable areas about my character, but that didn’t happen to be one of them. When I saw Chris again he greeted me with a big smile, saying that when he received my twenty dollars he took it immediately to his father, gloating all the way. He was so pleased to be able to disprove him over that loan and over the character of one of his best friends! “Way to go, Stoney (his nickname for me)!” I felt like I had scored a big touchdown in overtime. I don’t know what his dad said, he probably just shrugged. At that point what COULD he say, “Your buddy just got lucky, Chris?”