FIRM

I have this friend who keeps telling me I should change my religion.

This all started because he had this idea I should have a "sancho".

Probably, it all started when he was the friendliest person in the group of guys I work with. Right off the bat, he played getting-to-know-you games. He became a person I could trust with my work secrets. We commiserated about my boss and he told me histories, tales of morale, workman's complaints. Can't get no respect.

He told me stories of home. I told him stories of home. We talked of making plans. I talked to his wife on the phone about maybe hanging out some day. He told me a story about his past, other baby mama, how he was a dog, and his wife a saint. Her capability to forgive superceeds mine. I told him about some of my issues. He probably knew more than he should.

At any rate, about a year ago, he finished all our talks with, "You know what you need. You need a sancho." For those unfamiliar with this spanglish term, it means, "one who takes care of your wife while you're away". At some point, he began suggesting the sancho be him.

I tell him I can't have a sancho. When he questions why, I tell him this:

"I have a relationship with God. To have an affair with someone is incompatible with this relationship."

"Whaddya mean?"

"It's against my religion"

"Well, then change your religion"

I consider this. Not forsaking my God, but this idea that if the rules don't fit, you can just chuck them out the window. To me, God's love for us parallels the love parents have for their children. Just because it is unconditional does not mean nothing is asked of us. The conditions by which one abides when they want to stay in a relationship with God are not unlike a teenager coming home by curfew, because their parent asks for it. I could not reconcile an affair with my faith, and my faith will come first.

Lately he has started ending our talks with "Have you changed your religion yet? Well, when you do, come let me know."

I think he is being silly. I think that maybe he is trying to make me feel better, or just trying to be a flirt.

The other day, he shows me scratches across his face. "See this?", he says, and tells me a story about his wife getting mad at him, how she caught him taking a phone number from a girl who he was flirting with at a party. Once a dog, always a dog....

He points to a wound on my face. "See, we're in the same boat."

But we aren't. My wound happened because my dumb ass forgot a curtain rod was in the closet when I went through it for something, and it fell and busted my face. Coincidentally, my husband and I had a terrible fight the week before, so he makes assumptions.

He tells me he could make me feel like a teenager again. I tell him I would hope I am more mature than that.

I almost tell him about my theory of intention and right doing, but he doesn't get what I am saying, so I leave it alone.

I think of my friend Kerri, though. She was a best friend for a time in another state, and slowly we began the husband-bitching sessions that women get into. She took it to a new level, though. Eyes brimming with excitement, she told me how she discovered having an affair was the answer to her marriage. "It makes it so much better!" she says. I doubt it, and not long after, her husband makes her mad enough to throw it in his face during a fight. He divorced her, and she acted like that was what she wanted all along.

A year later, she was crying over the computer to me about how much she missed him, and how he broke her heart. I point out that she did cheat on him, quite willingly and with abandon. "I only did it because I loved him and he was breaking my heart!"

That is no excuse. Well, it is an excuse, but only one. It was a lesson in "decide what you want, and pursue it with intention." If she really wanted his love and attention, would giving hers to someone else fix it?

Today, my friend nearly choked to death on a dust bunny. He was violently coughing and had gone to spray water down his throat in an attempt to dislodge it. He was retching in a room and I sent his friend in to check on him.

A few minutes later, he comes, butt hurt because I didn't save him from dying, that I wasn't rushing to do CPR on him. I mention I sent his friend in....

"But I didn't want him to do mouth to mouth, I wanted you."

Then he tells me, "God is getting me, " grins, says it differently,

"I think Jesus is getting even with us."

"Not us, you," I say, pushing him out the door with a smile.

"I told you, I'm not changing my religion."