Day 092 – Visitor Idiosyncrasies

Welcome to Day 92!

Well, after a couple of days where decisions have been put in the spin cycle of a washing machine.  My mother is finally on a flight heading for Brisbane. Woohoo!  Right before picking her up from the airport, there was a little bit of trepidation.  The trepidation comes from no matter how old I get my mother is able to make me feel like I’m the same person I was when I was a teenager. 

For years, there are certain “cute” items of clothing or figurines, that mum for some bizarre reason, thinks I might like.  My tastes may have changed for the most part but at other times, they were never something that is “me”.  These are things that my mother wants me to like because she likes them.  Then you’re stuck in the quandary whether to say something and upset her or whether to accept it and then continually get something of a similar nature – worse still is something you need to display. 

I usually opt for being honest.  It’s a natural go-to even if it means upsetting my mother temporarily at first.  Now, for me, there’s a distinction between being honest and telling the truth.  Truth is blunt and unthinking and is a one-way interaction with the person on the receiving end; honesty has the first three letters of honour and requires context coupled with reason and a listening recipient.  It’s the intention behind the delivery of truth and honesty that makes all the difference “where intention goes, energy follows” (Linn, 1995).  

An overly simplistic example might be, me eating the last of my husband’s chocolate in the fridge because it was taking up room where a meal being provided to guests that night needed to go.  He wasn’t around to ask to eat the chocolate and at work he typically isn’t able to answer his mobile phone. Taking the chocolate out of the fridge would melt in the summer heat and re-refrigerating, from past experience has caused the chocolate to go off.  The options were to throw out the chocolate or eat it.  So, I ate it. My plan was to tell my husband when he got home and to reimburse him next time we were at the supermarket.

Okay, it’s a fun example!   When my husband comes home, I forget to tell him that I ate his chocolate. After an hour’s exercise he feels he has earned his chocolate and goes to the fridge only to realise there’s no chocolate.  He asks me in a disappointed and enquiring tone, “honey, did you eat my last piece of chocolate?”.  To which the truthful answer would be “yes”.  It answers the question and is the truth.  If my husband wants more explanation like a follow-up question might be, “why?”.  This is where the difference between truth and honesty comes into play, articulating the intention of why the chocolate got eaten.   It solves the need for people to understand the why.  It’s the more honourable approach even if the why might not be as honourable as the one I’ve said above. 

What if, instead of having friends over I just ate the chocolate because I really wanted some chocolate? The intention was still to tell and reimburse him when he got home.  If my response to his initial disappointment were “yes” and I responded with my reason.  He’d still be okay.  He’d be disappointed by my actions, but he at least had the picture.  What if my response to the follow up question of “why” was simply “because” – it wouldn’t go down well although it would be the truth.

So, while my mother would get upset with me, she would be okay with the response.  Sometimes, even the best intentions of why aren’t good enough.  It’s also a bit more difficult when you’re staying at somebody’s home or vice versa, when it comes to habits and idiosyncrasies.

Just about every visitor ends up buying their own food.  Even if we’ve noticed what they’ve eaten in the past and bought it, invariably their tastes or dietary requirements have changed. Or if you get the food that is okay, the brand that you purchased isn’t the right one.  We have a lemon tree in our front yard that was in full of ripe yellow fruit, only to have one visitor buy six other different variety lemons from the store.  Interestingly, not a single one of the purchased lemons were used before the end of the visitor’s trip.  I get it, you don’t always get to everything you buy – but at least one should have been used!

From now on, we’ve decided to wait until the visitors arrive before doing the shopping.  We go to the store, and ensure we pay for the groceries – even that can be a fight because the visitors want to pay!

Ah… idiosyncrasies.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!