I was gently reminded the other day that I hadn't posted anything since before Christmas. My excuse is that time has slipped away again; I cannot understand how it's almost the end of January already. But there has been something I've been meaning to talk about here.
Over the last week, I noticed the following:
A house down the street still has a Christmas tree up.
The guy at the corner brought out his snow blower this morning to get rid of the 2 cms of snow on his driveway.
A pretty healthy-looking woman whipped into a "disabled" parking spot and ran into the mall (and yes, she had a wheelchair permit on her dash).
And I'm guilty of jumping to conclusions.
Let me tell you about the conclusions I drew from each of the first three things I noticed.
First, the house with the tree - it seemed to me that whoever lives there is really pushing Christmas way past the bounds of normal love of the Christmas season. I love Christmas as much as the next person, but a tree at the end of January? Please.
The guy with the snow blower - what a lazy so-and-so. There's barely an inch of snow on the driveway and it would take less time to bring out a shovel and push it off than it does to warm up the snowblower and manhandle it down the driveway. Having a tool doesn't mean it's the right tool for every job. And the snow blower is noisy and annoying on a quiet Saturday morning.
The woman in the "disabled" spot - how inconsiderate that she wouldn't leave that spot for someone who really needs it. She obviously didn't.
Would you be coming to the same conclusions? (I can't be the only one. Please don't let me be the only one.) I think many of us look at situations around us and make assumptions without knowing the circumstances behind what we see.
The Christmas tree, for instance, may still be up because the person living there is ill and can't take it down. Or maybe they are waiting for a family member to come for a belated Christmas celebration. Or maybe they like to leave their tree up for two months.
The guy with the snow blower may not be able to shovel because of a repetitive strain injury to his shoulder or elbow. Or maybe he brings it out to do his driveway and then most of the sidewalks in the neighbourhood - it's faster with a snow blower than with a shovel.
And perhaps the woman rushing into the mall was going to fetch her disabled parent or sibling or neighbour and help them out to the car.
I needn't have made any assumptions about any of those situations - I don't know these people and what they do doesn't really affect me. Who cares if a Christmas tree is up? Or a guy chooses to use a snow blower over a shovel? Or someone takes advantage of a technicality while I drive round and round, looking for an open parking spot? It's not my business. Why think or talk about it at all?
Well, when I noticed each of those things, I jumped to some conclusions and considered them fodder for a post here. They were the beginnings of a grumbly post about how crazy/lazy/inconsiderate people were. And while I was thinking about how to frame all that here, I started thinking about what might be behind the behaviour and why things may not be as they appeared. It sort of ruined what I was going to say. But somehow it still seemed worth talking about, and so here we are.
Maybe there's a lesson in here for all of us. Or maybe not - maybe I'm giving crazy/lazy/inconsiderate people more credit than they deserve. I may have drawn exactly the right conclusions. Who knows?
