BAND
My brother, Mark, and I were nerdy dorks in school. And I can prove it — we were both in our high school band.
The band was for musical misfits, like smart mama’s boys and girls who couldn’t get dates. Band members enjoyed a low social status. Only being in the debate club or on the chess team was lower.
There was a time when we enjoyed a brief rise in status. It was when we formed a small jazz band. Our shining star was Jay Lowenstein, the saxophone player. He was cute, sexy, and man, could he play the sax! But Jay’s playing ended when he transferred to another school. And so did our exalted status.
I had a thing for one of the drum players. His name was Rick. He was a good musician. His specialty was snare-drum rolls. But it turned out that was the only thing Rick was good at. Mark teased me about him. He called Rick the “fire plug.” I guess this was in reference to Rick’s stature. But Rick also got red in the face during his solos.
As band members, we had our own table in the lunch room. All the cool kids, like the jocks and cheerleaders, gave us a wide berth. And I really can’t understand why. It’s not as if the trumpet players routinely emptied the spit from their instruments on anyone. At least not on purpose.
Mark played bass clarinet, I played the flute and piccolo. I started playing the flute in 8th grade and studied privately with Mr. Mastrolio on Strawberry Hill drive. He was a good teacher, but I wasn’t an attentive student.
It wasn’t until I started studying with Mrs. Polito that I became really good. She had a dirt floor in her kitchen. I wanted to get away from the dirt as soon as possible.
I became good enough to hold the first-flute, first chair position in the band through most of high school. This was despite Carianne Hokstra’s efforts to unseat me. She was first-flute, second chair.
Carianne was jealous of me from day one, when she arrived off the boat from Holland. Her style of playing the flute involved weaving and bobbing her head. This was presumably in ecstasy at playing such romantic hits as, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
But I know she was trying to distract me. She was hoping I’d make so many mistakes Mr. Haines would demote me. Nice try, babe.
Mr. Haines was our band leader, conductor and musical instructor. Looking back, I’m amazed at how many instruments he knew how to play and teach. Mr. Haines liked me and privately, was very kind. But he also had a foul temper. And it erupted quite often at band practice.
When we weren’t playing particularly well or not paying attention, he’d throw his baton and yell, “You reek!” Not exactly the encouragement one hoped for as fledgling musicians.
I think his frustration was partly due to failing somewhere along the way in his musical career. I guess being a high-school band leader was the only gig he could land.
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Hi. It’s me again – the rock. The one who lives off the path at the park. Remember me? I spoke to you once before, last month I think it was. It’s hard to track time when you’re a rock. We don’t have calendars. We could count the number of times the sun passes overhead, but then why? We’re rocks, time doesn’t mean anything to us.
I told you not much usually happens to us rocks, but I had an adventure.
Winter is usually pretty slow at the park. It gets dark early and the number of people walking the path dwindles. I think maybe the colder weather has something to do with it too. But, being a rock, I’m pretty indifferent to things like hot and cold. So, I wouldn’t know for sure. Anyway, there’s less people walking.
But last week, two ladies walked by. One stepped off the path onto the dirt. She was wearing hiking boots; the kind that have pretty wide treads in the soles. So she stepped right on me and I got stuck between a couple treads. I was wedged in there pretty tight. I couldn’t shake loose. I was in pretty deep, too. She didn’t even feel me when she walked. Since I couldn’t get out, I did what rocks do best — nothing. I just went along for the ride.
So, the lady whose boot I was wedged in, I call her “boot-lady,” was talking. Complaining was more like it. She complained about her husband. That took two entire laps of the park. She talked about how he didn’t pay attention to her anymore. He’d just shrug or say, “Uh huh,” whenever she told him about her day.
The lady walking with boot-lady just said, “Uh huh.”
She complained about how he’d come home from work and plop down on the couch to read the paper. He’d stay there until dinner was ready and then after dinner fall asleep in front of the TV. At dinner he hardly said a word, even though she’d try talking to him about important things — like how the service at the grocery store was going to hell, how her boss was single-handedly destroying the company, or how her brother was crazy to date that woman he met online.
The other lady just said, “Uh huh.”
Then boot-lady carried on about her kids. She talked about how they had no idea what the “real world” was like. I was confused about that. I only know the world as real. So, I wasn’t sure what she meant.
The whole time the other lady said, “Uh huh.”
When they left, boot-lady told her friend, “Thanks for listening. It helps knowing you care.”
The other lady said, “Uh huh.”
We went home and I spent the night sitting on a boot caddy by the door. It was pretty quiet and I liked it that way.
The next day, she put her boots on and met another woman at the park. She proceeded to complain about all the same things she’d complained about the day before. From time to time, this lady would respond by saying, “Uh huh.”
After their walk, boot-lady thanked her friend for listening and how it helped knowing she cared.
That made me wonder. If it helped the day before, then why was she repeating all the same complaints she made to her other friend? I guess I’ll never figure you humans out.
Anyway, as she was walking away, she stepped slightly off the pavement. That opened up the treads and I slipped out. I’m now sitting near one of the entrances to the park. Maybe I’ll see something interesting here. I’ll let you know if I do. Ciao for now.
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Going out on a date in the winter, in the South, is difficult. There aren’t many choices of venue. There’s no such thing as winter sports, unless you call drinking indoors a “sport.”
It’s cold at the beach. Walking, at least for me, is out. If I’m forced to go, I remain wrapped up in a heavy blanket whining about how cold my feet are. So, there’s no point.
I have a wetsuit, so I could brave the fifty-degree ocean water. I’d ride the icy waves with my board and my best bud. But, that’s in theory. For the wetsuit to insulate me, I’d need to get water inside the suit so it warms next to my skin. And I can’t imagine doing that. The cold water would shock my body into hibernation.
Besides, with few people in the water I’d be more of a target for sharks. Wearing black and sporting my winter blubber is not a good combo (unless I’m trying to imitate a fast-food meal).
I thought about visiting the local ice skating rink. It would be nostalgic, as my first date at age fifteen was at a skating rink. But I stunk at ice-skating even back then. I can’t imagine I’ve improved over the intervening decades. I wouldn’t want to risk a fall and take my date with me.
We can go down to the pub, eat pub food and watch pub people come and go. And that’s entertaining for a while, but we can’t stay there all day. I suppose some people do, but I think it’s mostly college dudes that don’t want to go back to their dorm rooms. Yeah, why should anyone want to drink beer and watch football when they can be studying, alone, and cramming down a fistful of pork rinds?
Going to the movies is the most logical, best choice. Of course, I guess we could rent a movie and sit at home. That’s fine if you’re already a couple or at least comfortable with each other. Then you can ignore what your “date” is wearing or that he hasn’t brushed his teeth in days.
But if this is a first date, going out to a theatre is just the ticket. There’s plenty of time to get lazy and leave your underwear around once you’ve reeled in him or her.
We head for the “multi-plex” cinema. The “super-plex” is frustrating. I get perplexed trying to locate theatre number 23 out of 40.
We pay for our tickets, splitting the cost because it’s expensive. It’d be nice to go out for some lousy burgers later.
I mosey up to the concession-stand and eye the offerings. I’m on a diet so I choose the small bag of popcorn with no butter. Although it’s a “small”, it’s still large enough to feed a family of four. And it’s loaded with enough salt to exceed my sodium intake for a month. But, popcorn is traditional. I can’t do with it.
We hasten to the movie theatre to find our seats. Settling in, we wait for the previews to start. How I long for the cartoons of old or at least a TiVo® so I can fast-forward through the commercials.
By the time we get to the main feature I’ve eaten through my popcorn. I’m getting annoyed by the kid sitting behind me who’s kicking my seat. My date is totally oblivious to my discomfort as he stares at the screen, mesmerized by the blood-and-guts movie preview. The feature movie finally starts. That’s when I realize we’re in the wrong theatre.
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2009 marked the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. Even if you didn’t see it when it happened, the clip is so much a part of history you’ve probably seen it. I bet you can picture the scene in your mind and recite the now immortal words of Neil Armstrong as he stepped onto the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I shiver every time I think of it. I saw it broadcast live in 1969 and I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Eddie Stinson Post 2407, in Detroit, Michigan. I was drinking a Squirt® and eating a Slim Jim. My dad was a member of the VFW and we went to the clubhouse to view history in the making with a room full of my parent’s closest friends. It was breathtaking to see.
Last year I visited the Kennedy Space Center. I saw the Vehicle Assembly Building where the Apollo Rockets were put together. From a distance I saw the launch pad where they took off. There was a whole building devoted to displaying the Apollo program exhibit. Inside it was a full size model of the entire rocket, complete with a lunar module. It was still breathtaking to see it up close, and to relive the event.
As part of the exhibit, they had films running describing the event with actual footage of the astronauts. They also had clips of people interviewed around the world and copies of headlines from several countries. I found one theme particularly interesting in all the interviews and headlines around the world. They all captured the same thought, “We did it.”
It wasn’t, “The Americans did it.” It was, “We did it.”
That event pulled the world’s inhabitants together in a way that nothing else ever had or has since. At that time, the world was a unified “we.” We realized how vast the universe is. We saw the accomplishment of a successful foray into that vastness as the culmination of an entire race’s dream. We were one people, unified together in celebrating our collective achievement.
And it was a collective achievement. Oh sure, it was American technology that got us there. But one of NASA’s leading scientists was Wernher von Braun, a man who fled Germany during World War II. Thousands of people worked on developing the technology. Not all were Americans. The concept of going to the moon predates the discovery of America. Galileo, Copernicus, Tyco Brahe, da Vinci, Jules Verne, as well as many others had a hand in shaping the dream which ultimately led to the achievement. Probably the first humanoids capable of thought looked at the moon and wondered what it was like. So the longing that spurred the achievement was borne in the hearts and minds of humans all over the world long before the Saturn V rockets launched into space.
That feeling of kinship was short-lived. The Cold War was alive between the United States and the Soviet Union. Germany was still divided. Conflict in Vietnam raged. North and South Korea remained at odds. The Middle East was exploding. Civil Wars raged in Africa and South America. The United States was embroiled in race riots. Criminal violence spanned the globe.
But for that moment in time, we came together in hope to cheer and celebrate our collective achievement.
Its legacy still provides promise. We showed that, as a race, we can all view ourselves as connected. If we did it once, we can do it again. It begins with you and me, every day, right here and now. We need to take more small steps toward another giant leap.
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I majored in math in college. In one of the classes I took, we didn’t have to buy a textbook. The instructor was in the process of writing it — “writing,” not “written.” He’d literally finish a chapter the day before class, then pass out copies of that chapter in class.
He’d lecture on the new material, then we’d go home to read the chapter and work the exercises. The problem was that nobody had proofread the pages he passed out. They included typos and other mistakes in the example problems. This made following the logic very difficult. I had a devil of a time in that class and flunked the first exam.
I went to the professor and complained about how the mistakes made comprehension impossible. He dismissed my concern. He said he’d thank the class in the book’s introduction for helping him work out the details. I left feeling defeated.
I called, Joe, my oldest brother to complain how unfair this was. He asked, “Who ever told you life is supposed to be fair?”
What Joe said became an epiphany for me.
We’d love everything to be unbiased, so that we’re treated fairly all the time. Wouldn’t that be great?
Unfortunately, that’s not the reality of life. Fairness is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Survival of the fittest is the general rule in nature.
It’s no different in “civilized” society. Oh, we make a big to-do about treating each other fairly. But who wouldn’t mind being slipped in front of a huge line by a friend who works at the movie theater? What job applicant will decline an interview at a great company where his uncle can pull a few strings? Who’s going to complain when their order has a few more fries in it than the next person?
Fairness is as relative as any other human contrived principle.
So, how do we proceed then? Since fairness does not exist, do we treat one another with cut-throat callousness?
I think not.
It’s probably fine to accept a few perks from life every now and then. The main thing to consider is the greater impact. Will your good fortune cause catastrophe for others? If so, it may not be worth accepting. Also, it may be prudent to cast a few favors in your control to others along the way.
It’s also probably good to realize there will be times when we get the short end of the stick. Think about it, you can’t catch the “lucky” break every time. Unfairness has two sides.
Hmmm, I guess there’s already a word to describe this. Some call it karma. According to that law, we have more control over how events occur. If we get short-changed, it’s because we short-changed someone before. If we get a boon, it’s because we passed along some kindness before.
Maybe it’s best then to pass along more kindness.
Either way, there is still hope when we’re caught on the down side of the fairness scale. Just because we were treated unfairly, we can still reap benefits. Usually it just means we have to work harder than we expected.
After my epiphany that life is not always fair, I quit licking my wounds. I took action. I went to the library and checked out a few different math books. When I didn’t understand a concept in the professor’s book, I consulted the others. Eventually I figured it out and ended up with a “B” in the course. Not too shabby considering I flunked the first exam.
I did learn many valuable lessons from that experience. Life is not fair. Karma may be real. But I can overcome unfairness, or “bad” karma, by applying myself in earnest and working harder to make up for it.
Sometimes life is unfair, but at least I can now solve a few equations.
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Though I like to eat fish, I don’t like to touch ‘em or look at ‘em. And the feeling is mutual.
If a fish would jump into my frying pan, skin itself, be-head itself and broil its own flesh in butter, then I’d be up for catchin’ it.
I read somewhere fish can feel pain. Yup, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a study to determine if using a hook is cruel. The study called for applying chili powder to fish lips (do they have lips?) and watching their reaction.
The fish tried rubbing their mouths on the sides of their holding tank, presumably to relieve the pain. That’s understandable because I do the same thing with my water glass at the Mexican restaurant.
I know humans evolved from fish, millions and millions of years ago. Although I swear I’ve seen some people who can’t be far removed from their fishy ancestors.
My elementary-school teacher Miss McIntyre, resembled a guppy when she was mad, which was most of the time. We had a lot of future drop-outs in our third-grade class. This made teaching a challenge. If she caught a hoodlum passing a note, she’d have him read it aloud to the entire class.
I guess the idea was to embarrass the kid, but the note contents were rarely flattering. You could tell she got angry as she listened. Her eyes would pop and she’d open and close her mouth rapidly (like…well, a guppy) before sending the offending student to the principal’s office.
One time, I came into class and saw something unusual sitting on her desk. Some kid had apparently gone to the State Fair and won a goldfish. It was swimming serenely in its small, water-filled plastic bag.
When Miss M. came in and saw the fish, everyone snickered at the joke. She didn’t quite get it, but she knew she was being ridiculed. She demanded the owner of the fish remove it from her desk forthwith.
No one stepped forward. In a surprise move, she grabbed the bag with the fish and angrily tossed it out the open window.
It happened so fast no one was quite sure what to do afterwards. I don’t know how long we sat there in stunned silence, with Miss M. wheezing and gasping like fish out of water.
We were three stories up. No one dared leave their seat and go to the window to see what had befallen the hapless goldfish. It wasn’t likely to be pretty.
Miss M. began to speak several times, but stopped. She did her guppy imitation, but no words came out. Then she turned and abruptly left the classroom.
We sat as stiffly as trophy fish. Finally, one classmate bolted out of his seat. Then it was a frenzy of screeching chairs and desks as we all rushed to the window. Everyone vied for the optimum vantage point. And it was an interesting sight.
Mr. Reiger, our principal, was looking up at us. There was a look of thunder on his face, which was drenched with water. The water had saturated the front of his shirt and plastered his carefully combed hair. He mouthed something, shaking his fist skyward. It was hysterical. The classroom exploded with laughter.
Mr. Reiger bent down and retrieved something from the ground. It was the remnants of the plastic bag. We could see there was still water in it and, believe it or not, the goldfish! How it had endured its dive to the sidewalk below is anyone’s guess. But I think Mr. Reiger’s head had something to do with it.
The goldfish survived, which is more than I can say about Miss McIntyre’s tenure as our teacher.
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Two of my favorite establishments closed their doors forever in 2009. One was a restaurant and the other a coffee shop. That’s right, Cuppy’s Coffee of Wilmington, my favorite coffee shop, is now only a fond memory.
Certainly I’m sorry for its impact on me. I’ll no longer eat delicious Caribbean food at the one nor drink yummy lattes at the other. But, I’m deeply saddened by the impact on the owners. These weren’t just businesses; they were the livelihoods of real people who became my friends.
They are now faced with finding new situations to earn their livings. And in this tough economy, that’s a tragedy. They’re treading a difficult road right now.
They lost their businesses and they lost their dreams. However, there is a saving grace. The great thing about dreams is we have new ones every day. Just because one dream ends doesn’t mean it’s the end of all dreams.
It’s devastating to lose a dream. It’s painful. It’s disappointing. And it takes time to recover from disappointment. But recover we can, if we choose to. It is a choice. We can recover or we can let defeat snuff out every ray of hope.
If we release our disappointment, we can then recognize new dreams. We can follow them. But, if we let fear of failure overpower us, then from that point on we’re doomed before we even start any new venture. Becoming consumed by fear lets our new dream slip away. It makes us more prone to letting the next one slip away, as well.
Being creatures of habit, if we let too many dreams slip away, we don’t pay attention when we have new ones. We become blind. We no longer see their luster nor feel their excitement.
It’s up to us to keep the candle of hope burning. No one but us can create, recognize, and pursue our dreams. Others may offer assistance, but no one else is capable of doing it for us.
In order to experience new dreams, we must first learn acceptance. We must accept failure as a natural part of life. Some failures are more painful than others. But that’s all they are, just failures. They are not definitions of our lives.
Failures are simply roadblocks to navigate around. We don’t want to navigate around them. We may think we can’t, but it’s really that we won’t try. There’s a difference between “won’t” and “can’t.” Acceptance is the arbiter that differentiates these two.
We must also accept that success, too, is a natural part of life. Failure can’t exist without success to compare it against.
Look at any great success and you will find several lost dreams prior to it. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was demoted from captain to private in the army, and failed at business, before becoming President of the United States? Henry Ford lost five businesses before developing the Model T automobile. Einstein was kicked out of school!
It’s not a failed dream which defines defeat, but a failure to dream.
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Really, I should know better. Bars are just not a good place to meet single men. But it hasn’t stopped me from trying.
There’s a bouncer blocking the entrance to the Gunslinger bar, which I hear is a hard one to get into. I’m not blond or wearing a cowboy hat, which I thought were prerequisites. But I need not worry. All a little ol’ filly like me has to do is wear something short and sassy and I’m in.
A great herd of single men crowds the watering hole. They quench their thirsts, drinking deeply of malt liquors and beer products. Many appear uninterested in the opposite sex, no doubt preferring male companionship for hurling peanuts or comparing biceps. However, the keen observer can detect a roving eye or two as interested men scan for unattached females.
I’m in that category, though I arrived with two male companions. I can see men eying them and me and trying to figure out if there’s any connection. These guys are just friends (without even fringe benefits), so I sidle as far away from them as possible to seem “available”. Of course, available for whom is the $100,000 question.
In a social situation, a single lady in the 1800’s indicated what men she was attracted to by agreeing to put them on her “dance card.” Though this seems quaint by today’s standards of unbridled coupling, I think it was a good way to weed out unwelcome attention. It has to be better than trying to hide behind a taxidermy display.
So when an old cowboy approaches me, sporting Willie Nelson looks I don’t like, I’m looking for a way out. I glance about, but my only recourse is to step out onto the busy dance floor. Big mistake. Everyone out there is in the middle of a huge line dance. I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.
The music is loud and the steps to the dance are intricate. I try following anyone who looks like they know what they’re doing. But it’s useless. I look like a drunken cow. I careen about, tripping over my own feet and others’. Worse, I’m building up a mean sweat. I can feel all my carefully applied makeup melting off my face.
Just when I think I’ll have to bolt to the cowgirl room for repairs, the same cowboy accosts me. He blocks me so I can’t get away, unties a handkerchief from around his neck and holds it out to me like a prize. I take the proffered handkerchief just to be polite.
The next thing I know, the cowboy whips out a microphone. A spotlight is trained on me. He announces me as the next bull-riding contestant! I’m herded off to the bull-riding corner in a daze, like an Aztec sacrifice. The crowd is cheering wildly. Now, I am really sweating.
The mechanical beast waits smugly, the smell of old socks exuding from its metallic hide. There’s a clothes line overhead and on this are draped various female undergarments. No doubt these are the belongings of women who preceded me to their bovine fate.
I have no choice but to climb aboard. I set the frequency of the ride for “Novice” and pray the machine breaks down. But no such luck. I hang on tightly as the beast begins to buck and sway. I hear someone yell, “Yeah! Show us what you got, baby!”
Though it’s difficult, I manage to remove one white-knuckled hand from the bull’s horn. I swivel my head toward my admirer. I smile, giving him the one-finger gesture that leaves no doubt as to what I got.
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I am not great with using tools. Whether it’s a hammer or set of socket wrenches, they all intimidate me.
It must be genetic, or the result of being a natural klutz that I lack spatial skills; the kind that would warn me if the hammer I’m using is about to connect with my thumb.
My problem with tools begins when I purchase one. Most come packaged in thick, hard plastic like it has to survive being hurled off the Empire State Building. (I swear it wasn’t me…)
This packaging is extremely difficult to cut open. Scissors don’t work. The stiff plastic breaks the blades before I can snip off even one corner. If I do manage to dent the plastic with a kitchen knife, the cut edges are sharp. I could sever a finger or at least draw blood.
I tried using pruning shears to attack the plastic. But the only pair I owned was now useless. Over Christmas I’d used it to prune the tree. As a result, the blades were completely mired in dried pine sap. Even the Jaws of Life couldn’t pry them open.
That’s when I got out the hack-saw.
I inherited it from the previous owners of the house I bought. They had left it behind along with a broken freezer packed with decomposing fish. The saw was a bit rusty and dull. (Hopefully this wasn’t from sawing through fish guts.) But I had no way to sharpen it. Besides, it was probably better to work hard at accidentally detaching a hand.
The saw became my general, all-purpose household tool. No tree limb was too thick, no ex-husband’s work boots too tough, for me to hack through. I got to the point where, with one slice, I could sever branches as easily as tags from new clothes. It had its limitations though — I won’t use it on a watermelon ever again.
There’s a feeling of satisfaction you get using a hack saw that you don’t get from a hatchet or axe. You have to work at applying a hack-saw. A murderer who uses an axe to chop someone up is lazy — it takes more deliberation to saw a person to pieces. There’s no doubt a hack-saw perpetrator hates the victim, as opposed to merely being annoyed by him or her.
As a result of continually using the hack saw, the muscles in my right arm became big and bulgy. I look like a lumberjack, especially when wearing red flannel.
Big arm muscles make it difficult to buy blouses. Sleeves fit one arm and not the other. I tried peasant blouses with big sleeves, but they get in the way when I try to hack something.
I’m forced to wear spandex, which reveals my lopsided muscularity. So I began an exercise routine of lifting five-pound cans of green beans with my other arm. This greatly helped with my body symmetry, until I consumed all the beans.
I thought a hack saw would be the perfect tool for that hated plastic-packaging. Predictably, it sliced through the tough material. But the saw teeth got caught on the plastic. It made things rather messy.
Even though I had hacked the package over an open garbage can, little bits of plastic flew everywhere. My indoor plants became covered in fine shavings of sparkling mulch.
I couldn’t control the saw with much precision. As a result, I completely ripped through the package instructions and part of the tool handle.
And I need those instructions so I can return this freakin’ package before the warranty expires.
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There’s an old joke about three construction workers. Let’s call them Larry, Moe, and Squirrely. These three were eating lunch, straddling a girder, about thirty stories up on a skyscraper they were building. Larry opens his lunchbox and laments, “Ham and cheese? Geesh, every day she packs me ham and cheese! I’m so sick of eating ham and cheese every day. If she packs me ham and cheese tomorrow, I’m gonna to jump off this building.”
Moe then opens his lunchbox. Seeing the contents, he too laments, “Peanut butter and jelly. Good grief! Every stinking day she packs me peanut butter and jelly. If she packs me the same thing tomorrow, I’m jumping with you, Larry.”
Then Squirrely open his lunchbox to find his sandwich. He also laments, “For crying out loud! Every day I eat liverwurst and onion on rye. I am so sick of eating this day after day. If I get this tomorrow too, I’m gonna jump with you guys.”
The next day Larry opens his lunchbox to find ham and cheese again. He says, “That’s it. Goodbye boys.” He jumps off the girder and plummets to his death.
Moe opens his lunchbox. Nestled between a bag of chips and a Ding Dong® is another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He curses and jumps, following Larry to his death.
Squirrely opens his lunchbox, spies the liverwurst and onion on rye, and swan dives off the girder.
The three are laid out at the same funeral home. The three widows enter at the same time. Larry’s grieving wife cries out, “Oh Larry, if I’d only known you didn’t like ham and cheese, I’d have packed you salami and lettuce! I’m so sorry.”
Moe’s crying widow collapses into a chair, bellowing, “Moe, Moe, Moe my darling husband. I had no idea you were tired of peanut butter and jelly. I thought it was your favorite. I’m so sorry honey. I had pastrami in the fridge I could have given you.”
Squirrely’s wife, shedding no tears, simply looks at the two women and states, “Well, you can carry on if you want, but I’m not crying. Squirrely made his own lunch everyday.”
More than a joke, this is an accurate statement of the trials of our lives. We bring about our own problems.
Squirrely’s is the most obvious. He made his lunch. He could have made anything he wanted, but chose to make liverwurst and onions on rye everyday. Then, when he couldn’t tolerate it anymore, he made it again, creating the circumstances of his own demise.
Okay, that was a little dramatic, but how often are we like Squirrely? We do something that causes us pain. Then instead of changing our behavior, we continue to do it over and over again until it literally consumes us.
It could be a relationship with someone which leaves us unfulfilled. Instead of working on making it better, we let it continue to spiral downward until there’s nothing left to salvage. Then we lament because it disintegrated and we’re left with nothing. But, we really did nothing to impact the outcome.
It could be a stressful job, a failure to go back to school, an addiction to drugs or alcohol, or some other situation that we could take control of, but instead we let it control us.
What are we waiting for? Now is the time to try a new approach.
Then there’s Larry and Moe. They abdicated control over their situation. They did it passively, by not communicating openly and clearly with their spouses. A simple request to make a different sandwich would have sufficed to change the course of events.
Why are we so reluctant to speak our minds? What fear is so great that it’s better to suffer its debilitating effects than face it and conquer it?
People really do want to be helpful to one another. It’s in our social nature. Look around you. People often hold doors for strangers, let others pass before them in grocery stores, and drop coins into beggar’s cups. We really do want to spread harmony. Yet we’re too afraid to ask for help or make our needs known.
I’m going to go have lunch now. If you’re hungry, let me know. I’d be happy to share a sandwich with you. What would you like?
If you're enjoying this over coffee, tea, or whatever, please consider buying me a cup!
