Who Is Your “I’ll Be Right Over Friend”?

I listen to a lot of radio stations and audiobooks when I drive. Car technology makes it easy to channel surf and focus on the road.  Bored with the current news cycle and wanting a little country music buzzing in my veins, I landed on The Highway. As I drifted down the road on various errands, a question posed by the radio host hooked me:

The anchor said, “Who is your ‘I’ll be right over friend’?  Call in and share your stories.”

Before the radio host patched in the first caller’s response, I pulled into the grocery store parking lot. Meandering through the produce aisles, I was so consumed by the call-in question that I nearly forgot the asparagus for dinner.  Internally I barraged myself: if I were to brave the radio show vetting process, who would I claim as my, “I’ll be right over friend”?  And, which friend might say the same about me?

Because I exited my vehicle within minutes of hearing the radio challenge, I missed the caveats.  Were responders to exclude family members or neighbors? Were we only to highlight tales of hard-core friendship?  As I studied the heap of ripening avocadoes, I argued with myself. Friends are not family, but many of us consider particular family members as best friends.

My first reaction was to claim my identical twin as my IBROF.  My twin sister has always been my first phone call when there is troubling news to share. She heard about my breast biopsy results within minutes of the nurse informing me I had dense tissue not cancer. One cold and snowy night when my husband wouldn’t answer either his cell or our house phone, she drove over to my home to check that his car was parked in the garage, and that he hadn’t slipped and conked out on our icy driveway (In fact, he imbibed in an extra cocktail at a work dinner, left his phone in his coat pocket, and put himself to bed early!).

As I lingered in a long check-out lane behind an older couple complaining about the escalating prices on coffee and fancy waters, I determined that my twin was not my IBROF, she was family.  Family counted on family to go out of their way when the cry for help came in.  While my twin was my go-to, my first preference when things went bad, what friend was it that I would I notify when family was not available?  I was running through a mental shortlist of dear friends when the cashier reminded me my credit card was ready to be removed from the card reader.

I know the dangers of pushing an unwieldy shopping cart through a grocery store parking lot on a Saturday afternoon.  I sidelined thoughts of the call-in question. With my vehicle in sight, a piercing scream two aisles over grabbed my attention.  A young mom was trying to coax a tired preschooler out of his car sear and into a hot shopping cart.  The scene clicked a dusty memory into focus.

In August 1993, my family relocated to the Chicago suburbs. We were one week into a new house, new schools, and a new neighborhood when this incident I am about to relate occurred.

My two daughters had already started grammar school, but my four-year-old son’s preschool program didn’t commence until after Labor Day. I opened a cardboard box, pulled out his Legos and matchbox cars and left him playing quietly in his room while I went to organize the cartons on the first floor. When I called for him a little while later, he didn’t answer.

A glance in his room told me he’d wandered off to begin a new activity.  I scoured the house, shouted into the fenced yard, and pleaded with the dogs to tell me where he’d gone.  He was missing.  Frantic, I called two neighbors who’d welcomed me when the moving truck was in the driveway.  Both ladies combed their yards and quizzed their own children. Taking one more screaming pass through the disorganized house before calling the police, I noticed a trail of clothes from the bathroom to my son’s room.  A lock of his mousy brown hair peeked above the comforter on his bed. My son was home and unharmed.  He’d been tired and put himself down for a nap.  I called the neighbors with the good news.

I never called in to the radio show to relate this story, but I did relive it with these same friends recently.  Sometimes when we need immediate help, we must go to strangers first. My twin sister was not available to assist me, and neither were my family. It’s astonishing how virtual strangers rise to an occasion just as these ladies did on that hot day in August 1993. Those two neighbors were my IBROFs, even though I barely knew them. As a result of an imagined emergency, twenty-six years ago, they are dear friends for life.  True IBROFs then and now.

So, my question to you is, what is your favorite: I’ll be right over friend/neighbor/stranger story?

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