Didn't Mean to Offend......

I sat down today to tell about a terrible experience I had at a local restaurant. Things couldn’t have gone more wrong at any dining endeavor, and although frustrating at the time, my family laughed the whole way home. And continued to laugh and share the story with friends for days. Typically events in life that aren’t vanilla flavored and perfect, are the times we remember, and when retold, make people laugh. But just before sharing my story, I received a letter from someone that took offense by something I had previously written.

In fact, I evidently offended a whole group of people that I had no intention of offending. So I thought twice about retelling my really bad lunch, and decided to say something very nice that would not offend anyone. Maybe it would be better from here on to just say very, bland, vanilla things, and see if I can offend no one ever again.

A good start would be about the restaurant I went to yesterday. It was very nice. My dinner was good. I used salt. Probably I would go there again. Maybe not. I wouldn’t want to offend food service employees by implying my burger wasn’t good and the service less than excellent. If I didn’t say I would return there every time, they might get offended. If I tell everyone that restaurant was so perfect everyone should eat there, then I would offend waitresses and chefs at the other 783 restaurants in the metropolitan area. Maybe I would offend people that got such bad burgers that they hollered at the manager. Or maybe the people that got wonderful burgers, and should have left a bigger tip, and are suffering from Puny Tipping Guilt, and it would make them angry. Maybe I better not mention anything about my meal at all. But, I did use ketchup.

So, I reconsidered and decided to talk about a parade attended. It was a very nice parade. Now, not so nice that it was better than other parades. The other parade organizers did a very good job and I wouldn’t want to offend them by liking this parade too much. But this parade was on a very sunny, cool, fall day and there was a girl holding a baby pig wrapped in a pink quilt. It took me several hours and my son explaining to understand that this was a pig in a blanket. But I was overtired, and my brain was slow. I still liked the pig. But I do like horses, cows, and dogs. And I certainly don’t want to offend the cat owners. I like cats. But if you are allergic to cats, I don’t like them. Do I? And I know sometimes sunny, cool, fall days aren’t exactly the best. Some people like rain. I like rain. Especially on a weekend morning when I can sleep late. It’s very peaceful. Unless, of course, you work weekends, and then rain is miserable.

But then I realized that no way existed for me to convey how much we laughed at that restaurant messing up five different meals and the watiress dripping ice water on my nachos while refilling my son’s glass without offending someone. But it made us laugh, and I had hoped it would make others laugh, too.

Maybe as we get closer to this election, we need to keep in mind that what makes one person laugh, may not someone else. What makes one person passionately for something may make the other passionately against. That we are all built with different cloth and rather than trying to find the things that make us angry, we should look for the things that make us smile. So whether we end up with a President McCain or a President Obama, it does not change the fact that the next morning we are all still neighbors, still friends, and still Americans. We are alike more than we are different, and maybe things will all work out for the best.

A smile and thinking the best of someone, even if it is not blatantly obvious to us, will make us all feel better at the end of the day. Because I really think you would have laughed had I told you about my really bad meal. And I really, really would have liked to tell you about the wonderful parade with the pig in a blanket. So, if you don’t like farm animals impersonating infants, and are a cotton grower and the blanket was obviously made of rayon, please forgive me. It was just a really cute pig.