I have a small clique of fictional friends that I hang out with when my real friends aren’t around.

I’ve watched them grow up, witnessed their successes and failures. One of them has an interesting story, which I will share with you. And yes, this will be releva nt to something, so please continue.

This friend, named Charlie, knew he had a special talent as soon as he put on a football helmet. He continually developed his skills in football, making the art of running the ball seem very simple.

It was not long before a professional organization took notice, and they signed Charlie to a lucrative contract. He was soon the darling of the National Football League, living in the limelight.

I started going out with Charlie, getting a taste of the glamorous life he led. It was astonishing to see my friend go through so much alcohol in one night. I started to get concerned about it, but Charlie was an adult, he could handle himself.

It didn’t seem to have any effect on his career. The fans loved him more and more after each game.

As the adoration increased, so did the alcohol intake. Each night, Charlie would reach the point of inebriation at which walking was definitely out of the question. It wasn’t until after he was rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning that I made my concern known. I tried to make him see what he was doing to himself, but Charlie thought nothing of it. “It’s my party, Christopher,” he told me. “Do you want me to quit living?”

So I told him that he wasn’t living, he was slowly killing himself. When I brought up the risk of cirrhosis, he said, “What do I have to worry about? If my liver goes bad, I’ll get a new one!” I reminded him of the long wait he might have to endure. Charlie smiled, and said, “I won’t have to wait long.”

He went on to have one of the greatest careers in the history of football. He also went down in history as one of the hardest drinkers on the nightlife scene. He set some records in both “sports” that still stand today. And indeed, Charlie ended up with cirrhosis. But Charlie proved to be right – within two weeks, he had his new liver.

My fictional friend lived out a very real situation. It seems absurd that someone with a deadly disease is forced to wait for a transplant while a celebrity that inflicted his pain on himself is immediately rescued. That is the reality of the whole situation, however. Mickey Mantle, former great of the New York Yankees, received a transplant for his alcohol-swamped liver, while innocent victims of cystic fibrosis sit and wait, wishing they would’ve been sports legends or rock stars that demand attention.

The process of who gets a transplant is done by computers, which take factors like blood type into account. However, a computer doesn’t have the ability to figure ethics into the equation. It can’t tell who has inflicted the damage onto himself and who was born with the problem. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Every human life is worth saving. I can’t argue that. But when someone spends his life slowly killing himself, I think he should go to the end of the line, regardless of how many home runs he hit.

Christopher Clair is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Waukon.