I’m not too old to learn, and I’m learning, seems like always, every day.

For instance, (examples always help clarify, even if you already know, or think you do), I can think of several, and unify them around the theme of food.

As you already know by now, I like to eat, too much. And I talk and write about it too much. Partly because it’s easy because everybody does it, eats, though not often too much, and too often not enough.

But it’s a convenient way to speculate by parallels and analogy, because food unites and unifies the world.

Anyway, as I was saying, or getting ready to say, it’s about limits and crossing them.

Everybody has limits. Even if they don’t act like it. Eventually we’ve all done it, reached our limits, at least one of them, and people say, sometimes out loud, “You’ve gone too far!”

That means stop.

Even mild mannered me, who don’t like to antagonize or talk mean, I too do have limits, and sometimes, just sometimes, occasionally, rarely, I say so and let you know. I’m saying it more frequently now.

When others’ limits are reached in the same example I’m about to give, it’s like a double whammy.

So this one time I was over at a friend’s house, I had known him for years. We had worked together, he had been to my house, and we had eaten at the same restaurant at the same time, even at the same table. This establishes the groundwork, a foundation upon which to build by story by example.

I was at his house and we were both hungry. He said, “What you wanna eat?”

I said, “Food.”

He said, “What kind?”

I said, “Anything.”

He knew how I eat, knew how I used to eat even more than now, legendarily, even though, unbelievably, I’m actually eating less these days, it must come with age like a symptom. It seems my ability to overeat contracts even as my waistline simultaneously expands. Go figure. I can’t explain it and so far haven’t seriously tried.

Anyway, he said, “Chinese?”

I said, “Sure, whatever.”

So he got on the phone and ordered delivery. One of those drive services, like GrubHub, or DoorDash, or Meals-on-Wheels, or Eats with Feets, or Gourmet-in-a-Minute, or Table Rollup, or Guzzle-in-the-Muzzle, or… There are so many, and it was probably one of those.

So he left his phone out and open and we watched the little car moving on the map. He rubbed hands gleefully. “It’s getting closer! It’s almost here!”

Then the ring at the door, the delivery guy handing over the bags, my friend said, “Tip was included,” and shut the door. The delivery guy stood on the porch a minute uncertainly, then turned, left, went away muttering.

We ate and ate and had a feast.

My friend said, “Watch this!” He grabbed his phone and called the restaurant.

He said, “I ordered egg rolls and there weren’t any. Either the delivery guy ate them while he was driving, or you never included them, maybe forgot, maybe on purpose to cheat me and thought I wouldn’t notice. In any case, what’re you gonna do about it?”

I wanted to intervene, because they had included the egg rolls, sent them, we ate them all gone, and they were very good.

He hushed me and kept going, “I want my egg rolls! You owe me!”

They said, “We’re so sorry, sir, we don’t know what happened, but we’ll give you a voucher for free egg rolls at your next visit.”

“No,” he said, wiping his mouth that had just finished the egg rolls, “What kind of operation are you running? You even have egg rolls in your name! This is a breach of contract! I could sue you and put you out of business! I demand you bring me my egg rolls right away! And hurry up, I’m watching the clock!”

He hung up and said, “That’s how it’s done. Let’s see how long it takes.”

I looked at the guy who used to be my friend and didn’t know him.

Sooner than you would think, the doorbell rang. He opened the door. There was a bag of egg rolls by the door with a note that said, “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!”

There was no sign of who delivered them.

He said, “Works every time! But I gotta wait a few days before I go back.”

I wouldn’t touch the egg rolls and left early.

I took his number off my phone. He had crossed the line. I didn’t want to even think if there were other areas where we could be friends. He crossed the line and I crossed him off.

Two weeks later, he found my number and left a message.

“Hey, Dude! Guess what? I called that egg roll place and they said, “There’s a note by the cash register that says “we don’t take orders from or deliver to this number or address. You have been deleted.” Can you imagine that? Call me back and tell me what you think.”

He waited a day. I didn’t call. He called again. “Hey, Dude…”

I said in my best machine voice, “We do not take calls from your number. You have been deleted.”

The line had been crossed by the same person at the same time, twice.

It was a twofer.

Just goes to show.