Storm Brewing

Sometimes in the middle of a beautiful sunny day, there is a terrible secret.

Sometimes when our eyes are full of delight and our hearts are full of love, we can be blind to the actual climate of a situation, and those clouds can come roiling up out of nowhere and, well.....you just wished you'd checked The Weather Channel.

I had a tough experience this weekend watching a dear friend verbally attack someone else that I love, and it all happened at what was supposed to be a nice event. After a little reconnaissance I figured out what happened, but that didn't really make it any better. It got me thinking about the difference between how a person feels and how they act.

I don't really want to argue about the feelings. You can't tell people their feelings are wrong. (You can, but it makes things worse.) But I might want to have a conversation about the actions. I'm debating this because I was not directly involved and it may alienate me from the person who said some inappropriate things. He's in a very stressful emotional state to begin with, and I don't want to upset him more. But I have not been able to stop thinking about how unkind the words were and how far out of kilter they were with the actual situation.

I did call the person who received the aggression, and extended my regrets that it happened. That might be enough.

It might not.

Photo credit Zevotron, http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomurl/842016056/

Wonderful to Look At, Delightful to Hold

But if you break it, we mark it sold. Yes, today was the first time my child broke something in a store. Against my better judgment I let her play with a bottle of nail polish in the shopping cart. I’ve learned that as a parent you take calculated risks all the time simply in order to get through the day.

I have to hand it to her, she made a pretty grand mess from a simple drop. The color was “Pat on the Black,” and the square glass bottle never even bounced. There was an enormous crack, and then the white tile floor looked like the world’s biggest beetle had been crushed under foot, oozing thick midnight blood in coagulating puddles.

I went back down the aisle and got a new bottle. At the checkout counter I mentioned to the young man that he should ring me up for two of that item, due to the debacle in aisle five. He stared at me. “What do you mean?” I explained again that my child had broken what I originally intended to buy, and therefore I would be paying for both the broken item and the one I was taking with me.

After processing my apparently bizarre behavior, he thanked me over and over again for “being so honest.” I said you’re welcome, but the mess is right there, I think you know what happened. “Yes, but we don’t fingerprint. You didn’t have to admit it.”

I do understand what he was saying. When it happened, it even ran through my head to not even acknowledge it. The item was overpriced to begin with, and it’s easy to feel like the world owes you a “gimme” when you are trying to function with a toddler in tow.

But I don’t want a gimme. I want people to admit it when they cause damage, and I want them to make it right as best they can. It has to start with the little things.