A Friend in Need

"A good friend tells you these things," Steve told me. I was still nervously laughing, weighing just how I was supposed to respond to his last comment.

He led me over to where Michael was standing and virtually commanded of him to pull something out of his pocket. They were Listerine strips.

"You have bad breath," Steve repeated. "Pop one of these."



I popped one, still nervously laughing and still not having had the presence of mind to actually articulate any witty retort. Steve popped one too.

"Now," he said, "do this." He exhaled like Zeus expelling a new child, showing off his new clean, fresh Listerine breath.

I declined. Steve just laughed at me and repeated: "Really, you had to be told. Friends tell each other these things."

I guess that means that I was supposed to tell him that the smell of his breath telling me I had halitosis was pretty damn bad too. But I didn't.