Back in high school the neighbors next door had a few kids that I hung out with on the regular. Their youngest was about 7 years younger than me. We weren’t all that close back then, but started talking pretty regularly for awhile when he started college and I moved out of town. I actually came back in and helped them with admissions and a few things like that. Going forward we managed to keep in touch while his siblings drifted off. A good many years later I’m living not terribly far from where we grew up.
Last week he started a conversation with me. Generic stuff. ‘How’s things? Still work at [insert job]? What have I been up to?’
Turns out he was coming into town to visit his parents for the weekend and was curious about what I was up to. I told him I had plans to figure out the wiring in my girlfriend’s kitchen and he offered to help for an evening to break up the monotony of hanging out with his parents.