Long-term friendships have a rhythm all their own, a shorthand built from years of knowing each other inside and out. Bobby and Amy decided to put that familiarity to the test with a few hypothetical questions, the kind you might only ask someone who has seen you at your best and your worst.
The first question was simple: if you could steal one thing from the other, what would it be? Amy's answer was immediate. “Your bank account,” she said. All of it. Bobby laughed at the audacity, the perfect mix of mischief and practicality in a single answer. His turn to choose? He didn’t hesitate. He would steal her boyfriend’s basketball court: an impressive space, complete with his college team logo. Bobby had tried something similar with his pickleball court, but his wife said a giant Arkansas hog would look bad.
They moved on to a question with a more practical bent: what would a 2:00 a.m. panicked phone call from the other most likely be about? Bobby’s instinct was immediate. He imagined Amy waking up, thinking it was morning, and panicking about being late for the morning show. There were other possibilities: sickness, kids, emergencies, but somehow, the comedy of a friend mistaking the time for a life-or-death moment captured it perfectly. Amy’s answer mirrored his, with the added twist of the studio panic: some urgent recording or impossible work task that simply could not wait.
The final question was about excuses. What would each other say if they didn’t want to do something? Bobby’s answer was simple: “I don’t wanna do it.” That’s it. No embellishment. Just honesty. Amy agreed that sometimes your circumstances create natural excuses, the fact that his wife was pregnant, for example, was a perfectly valid reason to bow out of anything. Amy's own “excuse,” she said, might be mental health. If she wasn’t feeling well, she would simply step back, and those who knew her understood without question.
Their conversation wandered, as long-term friendships often do, into reflections on resilience and experience. Years together had built a muscle of sorts, a kind of emotional strength that allowed them to compartmentalize, manage, and navigate life’s challenges without becoming overwhelmed. Hard times didn’t feel like insurmountable obstacles, they were merely another experience to move through. Bobby spoke of having a blueprint, a mental map shaped by previous trials, that gave him the confidence to face new difficulties. Amy noted the power in that awareness, the ability to act from understanding rather than fear, to meet new challenges with the knowledge that survival was not only possible but likely.