There is a great saying that goes along the lines of:
"To live well, you need to be able to change the things you can control, accept the things that you can't, and have the wisdom to know the difference."
Or something like that.
So I'm trying to figure out how to apply that to the following situation:
When I was 12 years old I was befriended by the intellectually disabled school gardener. Grey Bags. He was a friend of a friend of mine, and he had a car (a little yellow Stanza).
And all of his friends would hang shit on him, and use him up by getting him to drive them around. Like to the airport to grab some cartons. Or since he was working, to buy pizza and porn.
But I wasn't like that, or at least I tried not to be. But he would often ask me if I needed a ride home from a friends house or if I wanted the latest Penthouse. And I accepted, mainly because I liked Penthouse, and I didn't really feel guilty because it was him that asked me if I wanted all this. And if I said that I didn't want it, he would nag and nag until I relented.
I now realise that he was doing this because it would force me to be his friend. If I told him that I didn't want to see him or whatever, he would always counter with "so that's the thanks I get for being a good friend and buying you...." And such like. So out of guilt, things continued on.
And he started coming around and staying for hours at a time discussing his liasons with the opposite sex (both real and imagined), and I sat there and listened to his endless tirades over which Doctor Who episode was the best, and whether the third doctor was better than the first.
"Ahhh, I fink that John Pertree was better than Tom Baker, don't you fink?"
And I would sit in stony faced silence and occassionally nod or ho hum. And hope that he would leave soon. Somedays he would stay all day. And I would look out the window and see the last of the day vanish over the horizon.
So I have known Grey Bags now for about 13 years. And things have not really changed that much. But you cannot know someone for 13 years and go places with them and do things and not connect with them at some level. I'm probably the best friend that he's ever had. Underneath everything he is a nice enough guy, and it is only the fact that he has the mental age of a seven year old that makes things so hard.
So good old GreyBags continues to entertain us. The last time we all went into the city, we stopped at the Felafel House for a yiros. As we were all standing around out the front, a few girls walked by.
"Gee, look at how hungry those guys are!" commented one.
That's a weird thing to say I think, and follow her gaze to Grey Bags. He is a big bloke at 6'4, and is even bigger now. He's put on a lot of weight now that he lives by himself and doesn't do any exercise.
Grey Bags stands there obliviously stuffing his face with a chicken special, whilst he bathes in a white river of garlic sauce which cascades off his black shirt and drips to the pavement below.
Needless to say Darren and I were in the corner doubled over in laughter. And all the way home in the taxi, all we could smell was garlic.
I still don't know how to deal with him. What does a person do when they have a Grey Bags in their life? I have strongly thought about not inviting him tomorrow night. It would be good to have the weekend Bags-free for a change. But he'll be there, and I'll be there. And he'll lean all over me, and freak out girls, and get really pissed and spit on people while he yells in their ears about whether the Cybermen were better than the Daleks. And he will buy us another round, and all shall be forgiven.
