List of crazy friends is extensive

“You sure have some crazy friends,” my wife said the other day.
And who was I to argue?
She’s right, of course.
While most of my friends would fall within the accepted mainstream definition of “pretty much normal,” there are plenty of others who have — at the very least — their eccentricities.
There’s my old pal Woody, for example, who was studying for the monastic life at St. Meinrad until he started to pay too much attention to the local girls. The powers that be suggested, strongly, that Woody wasn’t cut out for a life of the cloth.
There’s George, whose life in journalism has been filled with more adventures than I can imagine and who, when he has been celebrating a bit too much tends to deliver a baritone solo of “Old Man River” no matter where he happens to be or who might happen to be in the audience.
There’s “Riddo,” who once misplaced a frozen turkey in the baggage compartment of a Greyhound bus. It was found, eventually, thawed and stinking amid the suitcases.
There’s a poet named Tom who carried all of the accoutrements for smoking a pipe — tobacco, tamper, pipe cleaners — and fiddled with the stuff endlessly but never seemed to take more than two puffs.
And I could go on, but discretion is important when you have eccentric friends. None of those I’ve mentioned lives anywhere near Jay County, and most are from years ago.
But you get the point.
What prompted my wife’s comment was a little package that arrived in the mail at the office last week.
It was wrapped in blue paper and was about the size of a wallet.
The address was handwritten in my name at the newspaper’s post office box, and I admit that I wondered if I should be worried about anthrax or — more likely — laundry detergent intended to look like anthrax poison.
But I opened it anyway.
And scratched my head.
Inside was something called a “survival bracelet.” At least that’s what the accompanying paper called it. There was a note on the paper: “Jack, 4 the next time you get lost.”
And then I remembered: About a month ago, I wrote a column about a hike my wife and I had taken where we’d gotten off the path. Our phones had dinged with a Silver Alert, and we had joked that maybe it was for us.
Now someone was taking the joke to another level, giving me a bracelet that would protect me in the event I again wander hopelessly off course.
So how does it work? It has a compass, for one thing. And there’s a nifty little unit that can create a spark so I can start a fire when lost in the woods. The entire bracelet is made of something called “paracord,” which has been braided. Unbraid it, and I’d have 10 feet of the stuff.
What I would do with 10 feet of cord, I do not know. Hang out my laundry? Skip rope? I have no clue.
I do have some clues, however, about which of my ornery friends sent the bracelet my way.
The postmark said Dunkirk.
Hmmmm.
I started working my way through a list in my mind and immediately came up with three or four suspects.
Trouble is, when you have as many crazy friends as I do, it’s probably someone I haven’t even considered.
But on the plus side, I’ll know what to do the next time I’m lost.
I’ve already tucked the survival bracelet into the console of my car where it resides with a couple of multi-tools, a flashlight, a pocket knife, a first aid kit and — maybe most importantly of all — a corkscrew.