Tuesday I returned home from having conducted a Bible Study to find several luscious tomatoes on the mat at our back door. I had been given a bag full of tomatoes by the lady who hosted the Bible Study, and I thanked her profusely because my wife, Diane, and I love tomato sandwiches. We a
lso love tomatoes in salads, and tomatoes in our goulash. In short we really do like tomatoes. However, those tomatoes left at my door pose quite a problem for me.
Now, I must be nice to EVERYBODY, because I don't know the culprit who perpetrated this dastardly deed. Selective niceness just won't work, because the folks I suspected of doing it were out of town. Now, they could have arranged with someone else to do the deed, thus throwing me off track. However, I dare not trust to that lest I be wrong, and neglect to befriend the actual culprit and lose his/her good will thereby preventing me from obtaining additional tomatoes.
To add to this dilemma, someone has twice left corn on that very same mat. I suspect that it is the same person intent on reforming me so that I act with kind regard to everyone. Whatever will happen to my reputation if word gets around that I'm acting with warmth and kind regard toward everyone in the community? I shudder to think that such gossip would get out, but with the very nature of gossip, I'm becoming reconciled to the probability.
If it weren't for these inconsiderate and devious people I could continue developing my contentious and querulous demeanor thus alienating people so that I might sit at home and indulge myself in that form of self-pity appreciated only by those of us adept at cutlivating it.
However, I do like tomatoes, and corn, and ... Maybe folks aren't so bad after all. Maybe ...
lso love tomatoes in salads, and tomatoes in our goulash. In short we really do like tomatoes. However, those tomatoes left at my door pose quite a problem for me.Now, I must be nice to EVERYBODY, because I don't know the culprit who perpetrated this dastardly deed. Selective niceness just won't work, because the folks I suspected of doing it were out of town. Now, they could have arranged with someone else to do the deed, thus throwing me off track. However, I dare not trust to that lest I be wrong, and neglect to befriend the actual culprit and lose his/her good will thereby preventing me from obtaining additional tomatoes.
To add to this dilemma, someone has twice left corn on that very same mat. I suspect that it is the same person intent on reforming me so that I act with kind regard to everyone. Whatever will happen to my reputation if word gets around that I'm acting with warmth and kind regard toward everyone in the community? I shudder to think that such gossip would get out, but with the very nature of gossip, I'm becoming reconciled to the probability.
If it weren't for these inconsiderate and devious people I could continue developing my contentious and querulous demeanor thus alienating people so that I might sit at home and indulge myself in that form of self-pity appreciated only by those of us adept at cutlivating it.
However, I do like tomatoes, and corn, and ... Maybe folks aren't so bad after all. Maybe ...
1 comment:
Very good Mike.
T.A.
Post a Comment