What would you do for a friend?

Here’s Sunday’s column, just in case you didn’t get to see it.

A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick
WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR A FRIEND?

They say that if somebody’s a true friend, there’s nothing they won’t do for you. Well, within reason, of course.

When you’re in your twenties anything goes. If a friend needs to be lifted to or from the airport at 4am, or if for some reason there’s suddenly a body that needs to be disposed of. Or if a mate needs somewhere to crash for a couple of months between selling all their stuff and running off to join the circus. Or if another mate needs help moving – you open your door wide, find a Persian carpet to roll the body up in and set your alarm for 3am. Or better yet, you stay up all night together to make sure nobody oversleeps, and then you hit the airport in style. And when moving day comes around you pull up in your Citi Golf and treat it like a Bakkie.

But once you hit your mid thirties it’s not that simple. Seriously, I’ve got a job to get to in the morning, I can’t be schlepping off to the airport at all hours, here’s the number for the airport shuttle company I use, they’re very reliable. Um, I would put that bloody corpse you have in my boot, but I’m still paying off my new BMW, can’t we use your car instead? And of course you can stay here, for a day or two, after that, we’ll have to figure something else out. My mother always said, house guests are like fish, they start to smell after three days. Hey look at that, you’re moving? You should use Mr September, he’s did my last two moves, he’s got like three vans, here’s his number. Mention my name and he’ll give you a discount.

The crazy stuff just doesn’t fly anymore when you reach a certain age, and that doesn’t make you a bad friend, that just makes you a grownup.

A few months ago I tried to rope a mate into a nefarious two am activity. I won’t go into too much detail, needless to say it wasn’t necessarily entirely legal, but after a bit of whisky it certainly felt important to me. When I laid out my plan, after waking her up with my call, there was a deathly silence on the other end of the phone, and then she spent the next ten minutes trying to talk me out of it. Fair enough it was a cold and rainy night, and she was already in her pyjamas. Didn’t I rather want to come over for a cup of tea instead? Ooh, do you have chamomile, I asked.

See, had we been in our twenties, she would have been waiting on the corner for me with a section of rope and some formaldehyde, within fifteen minutes of my call.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I’ve recently had cause to test the boundaries of friendship a bit. I’m currently involved in a competition, where the winner gets R20 000 for the charity of their choice. And all I have to do for my charity (The Bookery) to win, is garner more votes/clicks in a 48 hour period than the other contestants. So ever since the competition began, whenever I bump into anyone I know, in either the real world or online in the virtual world, I get this overwhelming obsessive need to campaign voraciously for votes. And now I think my friends and followers are about ready to murder me, or unfriend me, whichever comes first.

So please visit http://blog.pricecheck.co.za/2010/11/paige-nick/ and vote for me, if you get a chance. What, it’s not like I’m asking you to help me dispose of a body or anything. This time.

TODAY’S UPDATE ON THIS STORY: Yay, we made it to finalist stage, thanks to all your support and clickety clicks. The final push starts tomorrow, Wednesday at 11am. There will be a 48 hour voting window. The person with the most votes after that 48 hour period wins R20k for their charity. Winners will be announced on Friday. Please only start voting on wednesday after 11. Any votes before then will not be counted. I’ll post tomorrow morning with the link and details. Thanks again!