What Can You Say?

What Would You Do?

Say you have a dear, best childhood-friend, and you know her to be quite sensitive – she can and does get her feelings hurt very easily.  You have always felt sorry for her because, well she isn’t very well liked with the other kids.  She is somewhat overweight, and the clothes she wears are always hand-me-downs.  She lives on the “poor side of the tracks” with her mom and dad.  Her dad is an alcoholic and her mom is one of the most contemptible people that you have ever met.  In spite of all this, this girl has always been and will always be your friend. 

It had been a practice of yours, the two of you, to always meet on Saturday afternoons at the railroad tracks where the two of you would walk down to a secret swimming hole and go swimming. It had always been a very special time in your lives – the two of you had been doing this for about 3 years without ever having missed one Saturday.  

However, on one particular Friday afternoon, after school, your friend informs you that this Saturday she won’t be able to go swimming.  What!?  You can hardly believe this. 

Wh – Wh - -Why?  Wh -- Wh --What?  These questions stumble through your dazed thinking.  Catching yourself into some control, trying to not sound too shocked, you ask your friend; “Why?  What is going on?  Is everything okay?” 

Your friend being sensitive to your dismay, calmly replies, “Nothing is wrong.  Everything is okay – really!”  She continues, “I have gotten a new job so that I can buy a new dress to wear at the School Prom. 

I have always wanted to go, but I have never gone because I have never had anything nice to wear.  But this year, I now have a chance with this job to earn enough money to buy a new dress.  What do you think?   

Still recovering from your shock, you respond with, “Well, that’s great.  I mean, but will you have a Prom Date?”  Your friend, again with a confidence that you have never known her to have, answers you, “I know that I don’t have a date – I probably never will, but it isn’t important – we can go together – you can be my date” 

You friend kind of giggled at the little joke that she had made…. 

Anyway for three months your friend had never available to do anything with you because between her house chores, homework, and her new job she just didn’t have the time.  Finally, at the end of three months, and on the night of the school Prom you head for the tracks (the two of you having had planned earlier that day to meet there).   You kind of feel yourself running, being filled with so much excitement and anticipation to finally see this new dress that your friend had sacrificed so much time and work in getting.  

The day before at school when your friend had finally announced to you that she had gotten the dress and that she just knew that you would like, you had become more excited than you had ever remembered having been the night before any Christmas.   

The night before this day, you could not sleep.  You had been up all night thinking and imagining all kinds of shapes and colors of what this new dress of your friend’s could be.  You knew that it must be the loveliest of all dresses… 

The meeting… Upon finding your friend, she too not having been able to sleep the night before, she rushes up to meet you -

THE DRESS!  In a horrid shock, feeling suddenly sick to your stomach, you realize that it was the ugliest thing that you had ever seen!  Your amazement is interrupted with the gleeful sounds of your “dear and sensitive" friend’s voice asking you, “Don’t you just love it!?  

What do you think?” What do you do; what do you say; What can you say?