Jimmy and his brother Ralph both lived in the same town. Jimmy lived with their 90 year-old mother, and Ralph lived across town with his 12 year-old cat, Silky.
Ralph was obsessed with Silky and treated her like a queen. The two were never apart. But one day, Ralph learned he had to go to England on business. Cats had to stay in quarantine for two weeks in order to get into that country, so it was simply impractical for Ralph to take Silky with him.
Ralph asked Jimmy to care for his cat, and Jimmy agreed. So Ralph brought Silky over, spent an hour explaining the nuances of servicing the aging feline, and departed for London.
Every night Ralph would call and ask “How’s Silky?”. The first four nights, Jimmy, holding in his growing irritation at his brother’s cat-obsession, answered, “Silky’s fine,” but the fifth night, in response to the question, he blurted out, “Silky’s dead!”
Hearing that, Ralph almost died of shock, himself. When he recovered, he said to his brother, “Jimmy, that’s not the way to break news like that to someone. You don’t just blurt out information like that. You have to prepare a person.”
” Tonight when I called,” Ralph went on, “You should have said, ‘Silky’s fine, but she’s up on the roof.’ Then tomorrow you could have told me, “Silky fell off the roof and I took her to the vet’s.” Then, the next day, you could have said, “Silky didn’t make it, Ralph, she’s dead,” and I would have been able to handle the news.”
“By the way, Jimmy,” Ralph asked, “How’s mom?”
“Oh, she’s fine,” said Jimmy. “But she’s up on the roof.”

A friend of mine named Larry once told me, around the time of Bill Clinton’s 2nd inauguration, “You know, President Clinton and I are buddies.”
I said, “Sure you are.”
He said, “No, really! Just turn on your TV tonight to the Inaugural Ball. You’ll see me.”
Sure enough, I turned on the TV that night, and there was Larry, talking to President Clinton with his arm around the guy.

Not long after, I was talking to Larry about how much I admired Johnny Depp as an actor. Larry said, “Oh, he’s a good friend.”
I said, “Noooo!”
Larry said, “Let’s hop in my car”. He drove me to the bar Johnny Depp owns, and as we sipped drinks, Johnny happened to walk by, immediately exclaimed “Larry!” and fell into Larry’s arms.

This was getting spooky. Larry seemed to know everyone! I tested Larry with a few more people. We were back in the Bay Area. Larry was telling me he was buddy-buddy with Jerry Brown. We went to a Press Conference at Oakland City Hall, and just before Brown started answering questions, he said “I see my friend Larry out there.”

Same kind of thing happened when we went to Bob Dylan’s house and rang the bell. Bob answered the door, said “Larry!” gave my friend a big hug, and invited us in for drinks.

I was becoming a believer, but then one day we were having another conversation and Larry said something about “my friend the Pope.”
I said, “You can’t know him, too!”
Larry said, “Wanna bet?”
Larry happens to be very well off, so he flew the both of us to Rome. We took a cab to St. Peters Square. We were standing in the big crowd below the balcony of the Pope’s apartment. Larry said, “Excuse me for a little while” and disappeared into the crowd.
A little while after that, John Paul appeared on the balcony and started blessing people. And who should be up there beside him but…you guessed it!
I was utterly amazed! I nudged a fellow standing next to me, pointed to the balcony, and said, “Look!”
The guy shaded his eyes with his palm, peered up at the balcony, turned back to me, and said, “Who’s that guy up there with Larry?”