Best friends...EVER!! (Only Mark!)

Oh geez...ready for another Only Mark story? This one's an instant classic for ya!

Yesterday evening I was getting ready to go meet a friend of mine down at the park for a run. It was about an hour before I had to meet him, so I planned to run some errands and was getting my stuff together. Then it came time to find my keys. I looked in all the usual places - the table by the door, kitchen counter, dining room table, dresser, even in the lock of my door in case I had left them hanging in the deadbolt - but they were no where to be found!

So I stopped myself for a moment and thought, when was the last time you saw your keys? I then realized that I hadn't actually left the house to drive anywhere since coming home from the horse race on Saturday (sad, I know, but I was resting/cleaning), so it's entirely possible they were where ever I left them after that. Then I suddenly remembered that they had been in the back seat of my friend's car, coming home from the horse race on Saturday. I rode back from the race with someone else and used the spare house key that another friend had to get back into my house, since we beat the friend with my keys home. Uh oh!

First I call the friend who may or may not have the keys, but get no answer so I send her a text that says

"Ahh! Possible crisis. Please call me ASAP!"

So then I call the friend I'm supposed to meet at the park and tell him that I'm just going to have to run around the neighborhood unless he wants to come pick me up. He offers to pick me up, so the run is back on. Meanwhile, the friend with the keys calls back and I tell her what's up. The conversation goes something like this:

Friend: Hey, what's up?
Me: I'm going to ask you a question and I REALLY hope the answer is no.
Friend:...okay?
Me: Are my keys in your backseat?
Friend: Oh...I hope that answer is no. Hold on, I'm pulling into my apartment complex now, I'll check.
Me: Okay. I think they were in the cup holder in the armrest in your back seat. I'm not 100% sure if I took them out of there or not.
Friend: Well, let's see...the arm rest is folded up and...yes, your keys are in it.

Yeah, apparently someone in the back seat had folded up the arm rest with my keys still in it, thus causing no one to notice them on Saturday. Why is this a big deal? I mean, why can't I just pop over to the friend's house to pick up the keys? Well...this particular friend is the one who lives in Greenville that I went to visit at the end of February. For all you non-South Carolinians out there, Greenville is about 100 miles from me. This is no quick trip across town. Now I'm stuck in my house, while the only set of keys to my car is 100 miles away. Outstanding!

Ordinarily I would have just told the friend to overnight the keys to me and I would have stayed holed up in the house for another day...but, I had a job interview scheduled this morning. And with Columbia having no real public transit, I thought showing up to a job interview in a cab would be a bit...well, ghetto, haha. I was racking my brain trying to think of anyone I knew who might be free to take me to the interview or had an extra car I could borrow, but was coming up empty. Thankfully, my friend is the best ever! This how the rest of the conversation went:

Friend: Okay, well do you have anywhere important you need to be tonight?
Me: No. I mean, I'm about to go running, but someone's picking me up for that. The problem is I have that interview at 11:00 tomorrow morning.
Friend: Alright, well I have a massage scheduled at 6:00, but I can hit the road after that.
Me: (purely being polite) Oh, well you don't have to drive all the way down here, I'm sure I can work something out.
Friend: No, no, no! I can come down tonight and give them to you. I've done stuff like this before. I understand!
Me: Seriously? You are the best friend ever. When you get here, I'm buying you dinner or something. Are you sure you don't mind?
Friend: Yeah, no, it's cool. Is it okay if I go to my massage first and then come down after that?
Me: Haha, yeah, I think that's okay.

See, I love it. Completely unprompted, without even hinting, my friend volunteers to spend her entire evening driving a total of 200 miles just to bring me my keys (well, and my CD case which was also left in her back seat, but she was going to mail that anyway, despite my protest).

But that's not the end...

My running friend shows up to take me to the park and asks about the status of my keys. I tell him that Greenville Friend is driving down that evening to drop them off and, without missing a beat, he says "Oh, she doesn't have to drive all the way down. After we run I'll take you up there and we can meet her halfway." Seriously?! I have the best friends in the whole world! What I love best about this is that, if I were ever to receive a call from a friend saying I had their keys or they needed my help or whatever, I would immediately be on the road no matter what time of day or night, no questions asked. So the fact that I have friends who are willing to do the same for me is so amazing and comforting!

But yeah...definitely an Only Mark instant classic. Not only did I leave my only car key in someone else's car, not only did those keys end up 100 miles away leaving me stranded in my house, but it took me 2 days to realize this, haha! Who Else But Mark?!