A compass that dropped

One summer day when I was about nine, my two best friends were visiting my house. These were my friends from the time I used to live in a community of tiny half-dilapidated apartments, and even though we no longer lived close to each other, a few times a year, we would all gather at one of our houses and spend the day together. It was one of those special days.

Sometime in the afternoon, one of my friends went to bathroom, and when she came out, she was holding something round in her hand.

“What is it?”

Being fond of round objects, I immediately asked her.

“Oh, this?” She looked a little uneasy. “This is a compass.”

“A compass?”

In my friend’s hand was a tiny spherical compass. The spherical shell was hard and transparent. I liked the way it almost looked like a normal ball, but it was actually a compass. The arrow was correctly pointing the direction of North.

“How cool!” I exclaimed, completely attracted by the round compass. “Can I hold it for a second?”

“Hold it? You want to hold it?” My friend looked surprised and hesitated for a second.

“Why? Would it be bad if I hold it?”

“No, it’s not bad… it’s just that…”

“Just what?” I leaned forward full of eagerness.

“Well…” My friend took a big breath and finally said to me. “I just dropped it into the toilet bowl by accident. So, it’s not very clean.”

“But you washed it afterward, right?” I was not swayed by the news at all. When my friend nodded, I grinned. “Then, what’s the problem? Please let me see it!”

Thus, I received the round compass from my friend and put it on my palm. It was one of the most attractive things that I had ever seen. A compass inside a transparent sphere. I wished I had had one myself.

“You really don’t mind that it just dropped in the toilet?” My friend looked at me, still concerned, but I replied to her with a beaming smile.

“Why would I? This is such a special compass! I’m in love with it!”

The way my friend obsessed about the fact that the compass had dropped into the toilet and the way I solely focused on the beauty of the compass made such a funny contrast that the scene stuck in my mind.