My friend Adam always used to pick up my children from school. We had known each other since childhood, we always lived in the same neighborhood, got married around the same time, and my daughter was only a year older than his son. Since we both worked, it was more common for our wives to take the kids to school, but then Adam’s parents gave Adam a car and he volunteered to take his son to school before work. He couldn’t brag about the car, so he suggested that I take my daughter to school at the same time. I, of course, was all for it, as was my wife.
Adam started taking our kids there, and sometimes he could even pick them up from after-school care. He was still just learning how to drive, learning the route from home to school and from school to work. Three months after getting a car, Adam got so relaxed behind the wheel, thinking he was an ace, that he had an accident. It was nothing serious, he got a scratch on the passenger seat door and a bruise on his forehead, but ever since then he has been afraid to sit behind the wheel. I hear he’s even thinking about selling the car and getting back on the bus. And that would be okay, but now both of our kids and other errands have fallen on my shoulders and my car. I rent, it’s not even mine.
I don’t mind helping a friend, but lately it’s been getting out of hand – take his mother-in-law somewhere, drop off his wife at the hospital, wait for her there, take his son to karate class… I’m like his family’s personal chauffeur. Awkward to refuse him, because he helped with his daughter, but somehow his help at the time and its duration does not fit with how much I have to do for him. And there’s no way to get away, because he’s a friend.
I pray every day that he will change his mind and get back behind the wheel. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life driving around with his family.
