A good wrong turn.

The following is a post from a friend of a friend in Plurk.  The story is very cool and just goes to show that sometimes when things seem to be going wrong, they can end up going very right.

Well, Before the flood I used to go spend weekends at bf's house. I live in the city and he lives in this little village type town just outside the outer parts of the city. It was middle of winter and there had been heavy snow fall. Probably 2 -3 feet in places and more was coming in. So I decided to head home before the next snow storm hit. 

The temperatures were below zero and it ended up being the coldest night of the year. Because there was so much snow on the ground my bf normally kept to the main roads as they were the ones cleared first and usually pretty clear. For whatever reason he took the back roads into town. We are driving through this little neighborhood and he makes a wrong turn and goes through a way we don't normally go through the neighborhood. But this was no big deal because all the roads loop together...

Well, we pass this spot and I'm telling him about stuff that had happened in SL (SecondLife) when he says, "Sorry guy, I'm not stopping." I ask him what he means and he explains some guy was waving at him...trying to flag him down. Me being the logical one realize immediately that its way too freaking cold for car jackers or robbers to be out...its 2 am...and we're in an area that is considered the bad part of town to be in at night..so I tell him to go back. He fusses about it but does cause I'm having a fit about it. 

We turn around and as we pass this house a young man comes half running half sliding down a driveway, wearing blue jeans and sweatshirt. No coat, no hat, no gloves, and he's wearing low top shoes. He's waving his arms like crazy so we stop and he rushes over and says, "Thank god you stopped! No one is around, no one will answer their door. My car got stuck in the snow. I'm lost. I have no idea where I am. I was trying to pick my girlfriend up from a party and got lost. I was on the phone with her trying to find my way out when my phone went dead." Immediately my boyfriend's compassion kicks in when he realizes this guy is 16 or 18 and scared to death. 

We tell him to get in the car...to which he smartly hesitates but gets in. He'd left his coat at home and he'd been drinking. We drove him to a gas station so he could use the phone to get a ride. 

We made sure they would let him stay inside while he waited before we left. But after that we realized if we had not gone that way he probably would have frozen to death. And there was no way he could have walked out of the area because that area is a maze..there is three ways in or out and if you don't know them you won't find them. 

Life takes some strange turns.  Some of them lead to really good endings.

Kids can be fun.

My son wants an allowance. A reasonable request, for the most part.

However, I don't believe in just giving a kid money. I have this twisted idea that they should earn it somehow. Yeah, I'm a horrible parent.

I have shown him how to wash dishes before and so I figured I would open this opportunity and I told him this morning to wash all of the dirty dishes in the kitchen.

I pointed them out.

Silverware was already in the sink, plates and bowls were stacked on the table, glasses were mostly on the table, some pans on the stove... I told him that he can do them in stages through the day while I was at work.

By now, you have probably figured out that he is a teenager.

Well, I called him when I was on the bus coming home (almost 9 hours later) to ask if he had finished. He said he had done the silverware and didn't know where the other dishes were.

I asked him if he was kidding.

He asked why I asked him that.

He also asked where the dishes were.
I told him to guess. Then I said if he couldn't guess, then go into the kitchen.

Then I told him if he wasn't washing them by the time I got home in 8 minutes, he didn't deserve to go to the rather nice high school I have him signed up for.

I came in the house and heard washing in the kitchen so I sat down in the living room. He came in a little bit after to tell me he had finished the glasses and cups.

I went into the kitchen and asked him "what are those?"

pointing to about 7 glasses and 3 cups sitting *right next to* the sink.

He had washed the ones on the table, but neglected to see the ones on the counter.

I originally wrote this over a year ago.  Little has changed.  He is still a teenager.

Don't sell Rudolph short

Every alternate Christmas, I spend with my sons.  They are a joy and a trial.  Any parent will know, almost implicitly, what that means.  This is an off year.  They are with their mother having traveled to the other coast to spend Christmas with her and her family.  What that affords me is a time to reflect because, well, that is one of the things I do.

I grew up watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy, and so many more themes that, over the years, have changed.  Did you grow up with these stories?  They taught me a few lessons that I really didn't think about until they were lost.  I don't want them to be lost, so I'm going to muse about them here.

First, and seemingly tangentially, let me say that I do not like bullying.  Competition is a reality of life, but should be tempered with sportsmanship.  Bullying is a form of competition without the sportsmanship.  Why do I mention this?

Recently, I saw a picture that had a strong statement that included a reference to Rudolph.  In context, it was a very positive statement of compassion for the underdog (not Underdog, although I may address him, someday, as well).  I don't remember the way it went, exactly, but what essentially it said was that we need to be open to the differences between people and not look down on them.  Viewing the story of Rudolph in this light, the other reindeer appear to be bullies.  I agree with the sentiment, but am saddened by the interpretation.

As I was growing up, we understood that life was hard.  Make no mistake, "life" neither cares for or against you.  The caring comes from those around you.  The caring will come from your mother, father, sister, brother, boyfriend, girlfriend, son, daughter, grand parents/children, pets, coworkers, friends, neighbors, passing strangers, and so on.  You won't always understand the form of that caring.  In fact, you will often misunderstand the caring until it is "too late" (if  "too late" is possible, again, another topic).

Where did I learn these things?  From stories like Rudolph in the lost context of the times.  From the context of "we are all in this together and each of us can contribute something."  The magic is to not feel sorry for yourself and just find that "something."  Rudolph found it.

You may remember some of the stories that I remember.  Each had a message that sticks with me today, a "few" years later.  Each, in its own way, said "find your special place and help us all."

The story of the really small person that couldn't run, jump, climb, etc like the "normal" kids.  I don't even remember if they made fun of him, it doesn't matter.  What mattered is that he was the only one that could fit in a small place and help the king find something, maybe his crown under some immovable chair.

The story of the mouse and the lion where the small mouse was able to help the enormous lion by pulling a thorn from his paw.

And, Rudolph, who I had never thought of as having been made fun of in a mean way, only that his parents tried to help him cover up his "difference", his father was bothered by his difference at work and his friends picked on the aspect he hadn't been allowed to identify with other than as a "difference."  Once he found a way to accept himself as he was and that this difference could be seen as a strength, he became part of society.

The one thing I wish for us all is that we can stop looking at how we are downtrodden, how we are "different" (as if that is a bad thing), how we are kept apart; and see that by allowing these differences to hold us back, we give power to the hate groups and separationists.  Do you care?  If so, then help somebody see that their difference isn't really all that different.  Help them join the rest of us on Misfit Island, also known as "the real world."