With the fire crackling in the fireplace across from us, my friend said, “I don’t think I ever told you. I am a tin cup.”
“A what?”
“A tin cup. Like the movie with Kevin Costner, but not at all,” he said, staring into the lovely heat.
“I play golf, but I’m not the ball or the club. Or the bag,” he said, a wistful look in his eyes.
“I’m the tin cup catching putts. It’s a hobby. Sometimes I move the cup just a hair for golfers I like. I’ve also been known to jiggle a little to get the ball to go in.”
“And if you don’t like them?”
“Same thing. Either way, I’m always ready to help or hurt.”
I nodded. Shook my head. Nodded.
“But I have to be very quiet, and I can’t let the cameras ever detect it,” he continued.
“I’ll bet!”
“I’ll never forget this one time, though. My two friends were working as blades of grass that day and they were questioned by a golfer one. It was ugly.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t call it questioned. More accurately they were cussed at to the high heavens. Both of them had to go to therapy.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they had that.”
“Yesirree. Golf has more therapists than any other sport.”
“I wasn’t aware of that either.”
“It’s the truth.”
The fire had died by then. We sat in the dark and I wondered what I would like to be for my second job. If only I had a better imagination, I could be a writer.
