Don't Cross the Streams

Friendship is a lot like coffee: easy to get addicted to, the good stuff will keep you up at night with hyper irresponsibility or studying, and it comes a variety of flavors. Yes, friendship is awesome and friends are awesome. However, like with coffee, two really great flavors do not always mix. Likewise, your friends will not always mix.

You’d think that because you’re in the middle there would be some amount of common ground between you and the people who consider you to be a decent human being.

But while your good friend Hazelnut is a lovely addition to your morning and good ole Lemonade is great to hang out with at lunch, a Hazelnut Lemonade brunch is Hell.

But surely Lemonade and Hazelnut know that, while they are a dysfunctional couple, they both love you. Surely, they’d behave if you ever decided to eat at 10:30 right?

..... No.

I was on a coffee run with these two, when Lemonade went citric acid on Hazelnut. For the sake of diplomacy, I’ll refrain from telling you what Lemonade was being a grade-A jerk over, and simply leave you with this: Lemonade can be witch with a capital B.

You see, while some people understand that they have differences and respect that. . .

Others people use those differences like giant sticks.

It seems some people have a fetish-like love for driving other people insane. Why? Because Lemonade thinks it’s hilarious when Hazelnut gets defensive and Hazelnut wishes that Lemonade would fall off a cliff and die. Differences. Sticks.

And we all have those friends right? The ones we know we will NEVER introduce to each other. I often have this dream, maybe a nightmare, where a selection of friends from each of my people groups are thrown  in a locked room where they have to figure out what's the common denominator them. AKA, me. Let me tell you, it’s hard to watch a Garlic-Hazelnut-Lemonade-Jack-Coffee-Pop-Tart smoothie being made.


 Let me break it down.

Garlic friends are dear to you and strong flavored; but they also drive off the other friends with their pungency. 

You have to be careful with them, too much is too much, but life is sad without Garlic.  

Hazelnut friends are off-beat and quirky; usually better taken with Coffee. 

You don’t hang out with them all the time, and after you do, you wonder why you don’t more often. Then you remember it’s Hazelnut.

Coffee friends are the ones who pick you up when you fall over, give you a kick in the pants when you need it, and leave you caffeine deprived in their absence.

They may be an acquired taste, but once you have it, there’s no letting go.

Jack are the I’m in a weird or crazy mood, friends. Get with them and you’re a completely different person, unrecognizable to your other friends.

 You aren’t sure why you like them, but you know you do. Huh, weird.

Lemonade is an easy group, good for a summer’s day, but you best not be mixing them with anything other than pop-tart. 

They’re nice, even fun, but the can be acidic, or sour, really not an everyday kind of deal unless you like that sort of thing.

Pop-tart friends, these are the ones that take you back to the time of mud-pies and bake tassels. 

They’re just fun, pure, innocent fun that doesn’t carry judgment or sadness. They’ll give you cavities though, and reality is the only filling that works.

All of these friends are good and the odd day comes when Garlic can take a stand and be coffee or Pop-tart takes on a Hazelnut flavor, and lemonade sloshes around in your glass laced with just a touch of Jack. But there are also the days where the smoothies of nightmares come to life and threaten to eat your soul.

I beg you, dear reader, to mix your friends carefully. Stir, DO NOT shake. 

Check back for a new post on Wednesday!