On Being a Good Friend

If you happened to pass by the corner of Boylston and Clarendon around 6:30 the evening of Wednesday July 2, you might have seen two professional 30 year old women fishing around in the gutter. Had Rashmi and I fallen to drugs? Not exactly...the following is the series of events leading up the the gutter episode.
4:30 pm-- Decide to meet for dinner and drinks at the Globe. Contemplate The Cactus Club but decide that burgers and waffle fries would be better.
5:20 pm-- Arrive at the Globe and decide to drink iced tea and Roy Rogers, making it a "sober night". But I decide to subsitute the iced tea for a Rolling Rock.
5:45-6:15 pm-- chow down and sandwiches and waffle fries and comment on passers-by.
6:25 pm-- walk down Boylston deciding where to go next...and Rashmi gives her necklace a thoughtful tug, which causes the line to snap and a cascade of beads to fall into the gutter.
Since she still had a good handful, I said, "quick, just stuff those into your bag and you can restring them. It will be okay!" She looks unsure and says, "But it's my favorite necklace [later confirmed by her sister, who knew exactly which necklace it was without missing a beat]! It's from Target but..."
As I'm telling her it will be okay, that she still does have most of the beads, she starts picking loose beads up off the sidewalk...and then fishing them out of the gutter.
"Uh, do you need help?" I hesitate, but can't stand by while my friend dirties her hands, while balancing on her haunches. So down I go, and start fishing them out as well.
"Andrea, there's one over there."
"No, that's a cigarette butt."
When we had sufficiently gathered the beads into our hands, I looked at her and said, "You realize we need to beeline for the Filene's Basement bathroom stat." We hurried across the street with our hands in front of us and ran upstairs equally laughing and pushing bargain shoppers out of the way.
When we were washing the beads and our hands, Rashmi said, "thanks-- you are such a great friend!" Well, if all it takes is fishing around in a Boston gutter, I'll take it!