Moral Dilemma

I had just won a phone in competition from Radio One to go and see Oasis and The Verve, two of my favourite bands back in the 90's. The bands were going to be playing at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester, opposite the football stadium. It was a massive place and was going to be filled with loads of drunk Mancs throwing their beer in the air at the end of a good song. The problem I had, was that I only had 2 tickets and my 2 best mates at the time, Lee and Kimbo probably assumed I would be taking them with me.

I didn't know what to do or who to choose, and it made many sleepless nights even worse just thinking about who to pick and who to piss off. I didn't want to piss one person off and probably lose them as a mate just to keep another friend.

Then one Saturday afternoon the door bell rang. It was both Lee and Kimbo together, we had planned to go to the pub that day to watch the football game, but I knew it was going to be a horrible situation in the pub as each of them would be thinking I would be picking them to come up north with me to the concert.

As we drove in Lee's car to the pub, I was scratching my noggin, trying to think how I could choose between the two as both of them kept giving indiscreet hints about how much they loved the Verve and Oasis, obviously Lee had chosen to put one of their CD's in the car to play as we drove down the road.

“I love the Verve man” Lee said, “They are probably the best band in the world right now, and to be front lining Oasis as well, that just tops it off, 2 great bands, all at once”.

Kimbo then chipped in from the back seat not wanting to seem as if he didn't love them as much either. “Yeah and Oasis have been steaming it for years, Wonderwall and Don't look back in Anger, they are probably my favourite two tunes, I can't wait to see them play”.

Oh God I thought in my head, how am I going to break it to them, as the banter about Britpop went on all the way to the Rose n Thistle. How was I supposed to pick between the two?

If I just tell one of them they are going with me, the loser is going to be mighty pissed off with me. Secrets and lies. I can't be dealing with them and I didn't fancy losing either one of of them as a pal. I just wished Radio One had given me 3 tickets not 2. If I had as bird at the time then it would have been a viable excuse to take her with me without anyone's feelings get hurt, but I didn't, I was single at and stuck with a nasty choice.

When we got to the pub, we ordered 3 Stellas and sat in a corner near the big screen TV to drink. I knew I had to break it to them gently that only one could go, and to be fair it had to be in the open so they both knew my predicament.

As the chatting about music went on and on, it was made even worse for myself by both Kimbo and Lee taking turns at the jukebox to play either an Oasis or Verve song in turn. I thought to myself it would be best to be honest and rip the band-aid off quickly with both of them and put it on them to decide who would be coming so that they couldn't blame me for the decision. I didn't want to be snide about this, and thought the only way to choose was a game of chance. I quietened them both down and in looked at them in a serious fashion. I could easily tell that they thought something was up. I started to speak, looking from one to the other as I did just hoping one of them didn't break out crying or even worse put a mars bar on my boat.

“Look boys the thing is I've only got 2 tickets so as much as I would love to take both of you I can't”. They stared at me in disillusionment at the thought of not going to the concert. I swear I could see tears swelling up in the corner of both their eyes at the thought of not going North above the Watford line to hear their favourite tunes.

I had to think of a way to solve this problem without me getting the blame and losing a friend, then the idea came to me. The only real way to pick between the two must be totally random and not up to me, the only true way to face this difficult decision was to toss a coin.

I picked a penny out and gave it to them. “Here boys, the only fair way to pick between you is for you two to pick between yourselves, a toss of coin”, I took a penny out of my old black wallet and swivelled it around in my fingers, a trick I had learned early on for them to see it was not a double headed coin. You never know what excuses people will come up with when losing.

“Pick heads or tails”, I said "and whoever win comes, that is the only fair way I can see to solve this as I don't want the blame for not taking one of you”. They both looked at each other, then a few seconds of silence that seemed to last an hour before they both shook their heads.

“However who gets to decide who to pick the coin?” Lee sparked up. We all looked at each other and after a lengthy debate about who would pick the coin it ended up with me downloading a random no generator app to my phone. Each person had a chance of getting the highest number and Kimbo managed to win getting 132 to Lee's 89. Therefore after the preliminaries the main event occurred. Kimbo picked heads meaning Lee had to take tails.

After an icy glare across the table at the two of them I tossed the coin and it landed on the back of my hand. I slowly revealed the coins face with my other hand and the look of anticipation was dripping off both their faces as I slowly revealed the coins face, it was tails. Lee looked so joyful he almost came in his pants yet Kimbo was so sad I bet if a gun was on the table he would have taken a shot to the head.

“Sorry Kimbo mate, if I could take you I would but I only have two tickets”.

“I understand mate”, he said with a disappointed look on his face, “But at least you were honest and let us decide in a fair way. It would have been worse to be snide and take one of us and not tell the other one, secrets ruin friendships”. Yes they do as I was later to find out but at this point in time we were all friends.

I was happy that I had managed to sort out the problem without breaking up our threesome. It was always better to be honest and up front I remember being told by someone a long time ago, and it was lucky I had remembered that lesson here. I could only imagine the fights if one of them had heard about me sneaking one of them off without telling them. Knives, pens, even match sticks would have been stuck at someone’s face I could imagine.

We all left the pub as mates and when Lee and I came back from the concert, we told Kimbo about it and played the recording we had made for him on a tape with the sound of the crowd as well as a clear as possible sound track from the bands. We had to literally fight our way through northern monkeys to get to the front of the crowd and get a good recording. We had even wrapped it up in a little box with a bow and when Kimbo opened it and realised what we had done he was so happy.

It was a good solution for a shit problem but it had all worked out okay in the end.

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