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In a previous podcast, I mentioned the value of being nice to others, especially
in these trying times. Karma sometimes works amazingly swiftly.
There comes a point in which we must all face ourselves in the mirror, take
a long hard look at the person in there and ask them if they are ... if not
happy, at least content, comfortable with who they are. This sort of self
assessment takes up valuable real estate in your local bookstore and I,
for one, am at a loss as to why. Not that we can't all use a little help
and certainly self-assessment is good thing (up to a point: Hollywood tends
to go over board and we, TV nation zealots, seem content to let them get
away with it. Heck, we even pay them for it. No, wait, that's Washington. My bad...)
But seriously, a self-help book? If you could figure it out on your own, you would
have by now and while these books are written by very serious people who
believe themselves to be very helpful (take a look at those jacket
photos if you doubt me), I've rarely seen one (okay, I could
stop the sentence there, I really am rambling about what I know not, but
hey, this is America and I've a God-given right to ramble about
what I know not. That is expressly granted in the Declaration
of Interdependence, co-authored by the experts on both coasts.)
Okay, where was I. Hmm, there's probably a book that will help my
short term memory, though truly, the cure for my current ills
is more like, I dunno, "English: A Primer". Run-on sentences come
from run-on minds, this is nothing new. What is new is that the
run-on mind is tolerated, why is beyond me. Meanwhile, back at
the topic (about 6 minutes lost now), the useful content of a stack of
self-help books can usually be accurately and succinctly boiled down
to a saying your grandmother told you once when you weren't listening.
Remember the "honey vinegar fly" thing? The one that, as a child,
you could not fathom why this octogenarian was wanting you to catch
flies (yet wouldn't let you go out to catch fireflies after bed time.
I mean, really , consistency was lost 2 or 3 generations ago as far
as my childhood can tell.) So, I'm getting old enough now to
actually catch on to the wisdom in there. The actual saying goes
something like "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar" which
is a completely cumbersome way of saying "Be nice, it works better
than not being nice." And truly, it costs nothing.
Actually, that's not true. It costs $11.11 at your local airport.
For $11.11 in the Dallas/Forth Worth Airport, I obtained not one
but four bags of candy: Rolo's, Reese cups, Hershey's mixed and
one other I can't recall. All chocolate, all evil, and not one
would be confused with vinegar, even close to Easter.
A nice lady, whose name may have been Dana, was working the gate
on my connecting flight and, though the weather was fine and
the airport business was light (no delays or other problems that
would cause passengers to transmogrophy into demons, devils
and spoiled children of all ages), she had clearly had a day.
She had just gone through a long line of
customers, some of them surprisingly cranky and a few simply
rude. ("Sir, I don't need your attitude, I'm just doing
my job" is a phrase that should never be warranted, much less
so obviously practiced, as if needed on more than a daily basis.)
So, she's having a day. It isn't a good day, clearly, but to hear
her, it isn't a bad day, either. It should be, based on what I've seen,
it would have led to various misdemeanors had I been subjected to that
kind of day but there she was, finding a smile for the next customer,
patiently answering the same question, over and over, despite the
answer being shown on the monitor immediately behind her in
big easy-to-read font. (If you heard guilt in that last
sentence, you have very good hearing, by the way.) So, it
seemed there should be something nice in her day, to offset the bad.
A spontaneous moment of Trick-or-Treating seemed to me like a bargain
at $11.11.
Four bags of candy laid out, "Which one is your favourite?" Three
bags put back in my carry-on and voila, her unremarkable perseverance
suddenly pays off unexpectedly and th needle on her day-meter moves
to the "Green is Good" side.
And with her good day, the ripples of one of those "random acts
of kindness" spread to the flight crew, who she told me later
"loved the candy." So, when boarding the plane, clearly I
had to slide another bag of candy over and the effect was even
better. Now, understand, this was the last flight out of a
busy terminal and this was a flight crew that had worked
every minute of the day. With in-flight dinners having gone the way of Boler
hats these days and the snack selection growing ever smaller on airlines (and in
some cases, being for-fee, as if the ticket was just a gratuity for the honor
of having the selection), a bag of chocolate doth seem to loom
large on the horizon.
I get a kick of watching people rediscover their inner child and
unexpected candy is almost always a hit, no matter the age of
the recipient. I've seen 50 and 60 year old engineers, the very
mix of old codger and mad scientist, be instantly replaced by a
mischievous 7-year-old boy at the unexpected presence of uncooked
cookie dough. (If you just blanched at that thought, you need to
take your inner kid to the candy isle and listen very, very closely.
Raw cookie dough is only slightly less great than raw cake icing.
If you are truly brave, try "goop", an invention by my brilliant
older brother (himself a mad scientist trying to grow into that
old codger role). Goop is made up of brown sugar and milk and,
nope, that's it. Just pour milk in until you think you can drink
it and, well, drink it! Raw cookie dough is good, cakeless
icing better and goop is the greatest of all.)
Likewise, vinegar is lousy for flies, honey is okay for bees,
chocolate is great for humans and, in a pinch, most any sugary
substance will draw out the lurking inner child.
Be nice to the kids, they grow up to be in charge of where you
sit on the plane.
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