I don’t know about you, but chances are fair to middlin’ at least some folks developed at least one or two false impressions about you (or your business) at some time in your life, right? Hey, it happens. Sometimes folks just flat out misunderstand what you said – or meant – or did – and the lines of communication get all snarled up like a fishing reel that’s gone haywire.

Hey, it’s bad enough when your customers get the wrong impression of you or your business. At least when you have a relationship with your customers, you might (at least, hopefully) get the chance to explain.

But what about when your customers give others the wrong impression? What the heck can you do then?

Bus Driver for Hire

Back when I was a starving student at Texas A&M, for spending money I drove shuttle buses around the campus. I’ll tell ya; that was one great job: flexible hours, good pay, and when you got right down to it, pretty easy work.

Probably the hardest part of the job was navigating through the sometimes narrow streets on campus. Generally speaking, that wasn’t too bad a problem – unless, of course, some bonehead parked their car where it shouldn’t have been. Many’s the time I wished we had a handy, er, dozer blade on the front of the bus. But I digress.

Anyway, one day my supervisor asked some of us if we wanted to earn a little extra income by working on an upcoming Saturday. Naturally we all perked up at that – until, that is, we heard what the job actually was. The task, he told us, was to drive the local Jewish elementary school’s children (about 200 or so of the little darlings) from College Station to downtown Houston. Turns out they had arranged a special showing of the stage version of Fiddler on the Roof for the kids, and the best way to get ‘em all there was using our buses.

Well, let’s see… on the one hand, the mental image of driving to Houston with 50 or so screaming elementary kids on my bus for approximately 3 hours – each way – was, well, a mite daunting. (For those of you familiar with the drive, what would normally take a little more than an hour-and-a-half or so would take at least twice as long for this trip because rules required us to drive no faster than 50 miles per hour.) Still, after due consideration, the lure of that extra spending money convinced four of us to finally throw caution to the winds and say, What the hey!

What’s This Got to Do with Beer?

By now you’re probably wondering just what the heck this image of assorted beer bottles has to do with this story. Hey, I’m glad you asked! The fact is, whenever I remember this particular day, it’s the only thing I can think of.

That’s because, for the entire 3-hour drive from College Station to Houston – and then again for the entire drive back – the kids sang what I consider to be the Worlds Stupidest Song: “99 Bottles of Beer”! Just in case you’ve lived under a rock your entire life and have never heard it (congratulations!), it goes like this:

99 bottles of beer on the wall,

99 bottles of beer –

You take one down,

And pass it around –

98 bottles of beer on the wall!

98 bottles of beer on the wall,

98 bottles of beer –

You take one down,

And pass it around –

97 bottles of beer on the wall!

97 bottles of –

Well, you get the picture, right? No kidding, y’all; they sang the entire stupid song down from 99 bottles to 1 – and then started over again. And again. And… again. I’ll tell ya; by the time we arrived at the Music Hall in downtown Houston, I was sorely tempted to let ‘em out – and then leave ‘em all there! Yeesh!

While the kids were inside watching the show, we four drivers found a coffee shop to hang out in. As I sat there, silently contemplating the trip back (with no small amount of dread), one of the other drivers finally broke the silence and asked, “Did your kids… uh, sing any songs on your bus?”

That was when the awful truth was revealed: it wasn’t just my group, but all of ‘em were singing that stupid song! What gives with that, we wondered. Just what the heck were they teaching those kids at that school, anyway?

Getting the Wrong Idea

After about 3.5 nanoseconds, though, I realized it wasn’t really the school’s fault their elementary-aged kids seem to have a fixation on, well, beer. Hey, kids are kids; they’ll do all kinds of things you won’t expect. Nature of the, er, beasts, if you follow me. And I reflected a moment or two on how easy it was to think of the school as bein’ the problem.

It’s really funny sometimes just what kind of impression your customers give of you, isn’t it? I mean, when you get right down to it, that’s something you really don’t have too much control over. Oh, sure; you can do your best to influence, mitigate, or even try to direct the conversation – but when you get right down to it, they’re pretty much gonna do what they’re gonna do.

If you were the principal of this particular school and just read this story, what would you be thinking along about now?

So the question is, how do you handle it when folks get the wrong idea about your business. Or even worse – what if the wrong impression is all about you?

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This is my entry for this month’s “What I Learned From Children” groupwrite project. Hey, you’re welcome to join us – all you have to do is follow this cute little link and read all about it!

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“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

As most of you know, it is indeed possible to find treasure in the most unexpected places. Especially when you’re willing to take the time to really look.

One Man’s Trash

Quite a few years ago Mrs. MZM and I temporarily moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan so I could take an engineering job in a chemical plant for a few months. Since we knew we’d be there only a short time (maybe 6 months? who knew?), we decided to keep the apartment furnishings to a minimum. I mean, why spend money we’d never get back, y’know?

Anyway, after moving in, we drove around town, just sorta getting’ the lay of the land, so to speak. Suddenly Mrs. MZM pointed off to the right and said, “Pull up over there!”. I immediately executed a tire-screeching Bat-Turn safe, totally legal and non-life-threatening u-turn to the indicated spot.

Right in front of us was a large dumpster. I looked at her in disbelief and thought to myself, surely she couldn’t mean–?

But I was wrong.

Years ago I knew a guy who rode a trash collection truck to earn money for college. He used to regale us with tales of the many treasures he found every day – bowling balls, stacks of records (you remember vinyl LP records, don’t you?), perfectly good clothes of all sorts – you name it. I was always amazed at what folks will throw away, y’know?

Well, memories of that fellow came back to me now as I realized Mrs. MZM wanted me to take a look at something in that dumpster. Now, had I still been a kid, I’d have no problem, y’know? But hey, I’m an adult now! Adults don’t do this sort of thing! (Besides, it was probably filled with all manner of icky stuff, not to mention little creepy crawly critters, to boot!)

All this and more scampered briefly through my brain as I climbed out of the car and approached the rusty metal behemoth. It was one of those enclosed types with a partially opened sliding door in its side. That’s where Mrs. MZM pointed. “There’s a lamp shade right there close to that opening. Just reach in and grab it – let’s see what it looks like.”

Poised to make a quick getaway (just in case a rat, a snake, or y’know, a slime-covered tentacle reached for me), I tremulously latched onto the aforementioned shade and gave an admittedly hesitant little pull. It didn’t budge. I tried again, a little bit harder this time, and felt it give a bit. Finally I took a deep breath, threw caution to the winds, and grabbed it with both hands. Exerting a mighty heave, I stumbled backwards with my hard-won prize and was rewarded with – an entire lamp!

Another Man’s Treasure

And wow, what a treasure! Well, it’s not that it turned out to be genuine Waterford crystal or anything, but it certainly was pretty. I was astonished somebody would throw away a perfectly good and serviceable lamp like that. (And yes, it worked perfectly!)

As I returned to the car with my loot, Mrs. MZM couldn’t help the lightly smug “I told you so” expression, and rightly so. Our little treasure turned out to be far better than either of us had expected.

Funny how that saying can be so true, isn’t it: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Over the years, I’ve encountered countless instances just like this of how a piece of junk turned into something wonderful. In fact, we have a perfectly good antique clock on our shelf to prove it. Sometimes you have to clean things up a bit – but sometimes not.

To tell you the truth, the only difference between an object’s being trash or treasure is not necessarily in where you find it. Nope; it’s in how you look at it. So it sorta begs the question, doesn’t it?

What surprising little treasures have you been missing because you haven’t taken the time to really look?

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Sometimes the urge to say what’s on my mind can get me into big trouble.

– Likely epitaph for Robert Hruzek

(hopefully a long time from now!)

OK, for those of you who’ve spent any time at all here at the Zone, that statement above will come as no surprise whatsoever. The trouble, though, is that knowin’ that little datum doesn’t always prevent me from, well, saying stuff anyway.

See, the thing is, what with this brand spankin’ new year and all, I really racked the ol’ brain to come up with a post that would sorta capture the essence, the nub of the gist, the je ne se quois for 2010. (In case you don’t know, je ne se quois is French for “duh”.) And finally it hit me (sound of dull thud) – this year, it’s gonna be all about words.

Therefore, I’m declaring the year 2010 to be the Year of the Words. An attorney friend of mine keeps reminding me, “words are important” (a heckuva understatement if there ever was one), so this first post of the year is going to be all about, well, carefully considering everything you say.

And trust me; this is experience talkin’.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Summer Camp

Never was the importance of thinking about your words more true than one time back in 1978, when I was a counselor at a children’s summer camp deep in the woods of East Texas, smack in the middle of Huntsville State Park.

The way this camp worked, see, is parents would drop off their kids each Sunday afternoon (about 125 or so boys and girls, aged 8-12), then pick ‘em up again the following Saturday morning. Then this process was repeated with a different set of families for seven weeks in a row.

So far as I know, we always had the same number of pickups as drop-offs, so I guess in the large scheme of things you would consider our efforts a success. Still, every week produced its own set of unusual “situations” that had to be dealt with, plus a few challenges that spanned the entire summer.

One of those “all summer long” challenges, for instance, centered around breakfast, of all things. See, every morning we trooped our campers into the dining hall for their morning supply of energy. With the full days we routinely planned for the kids, their energetic little bodies needed to be well loaded with fuel. And what a breakfast it was!

Every morning’s menu was different. One day it was a selection of cold cereals, milk (plain and chocolate), about a billion kinds of muffins, assorted juices, etc. Another day it was scrambled eggs, bacon and assorted toast (including my favorite: cinnamon raisin bread).

Best of all, the food was, like, amazingly good, too, and there was always plenty for all. No one ever left the breakfast table hungry, that’s for sure. I’ll tell ya; those sweet ladies who cooked for us every day really outdid themselves.

Except, that is, on Wednesdays. See, on Wednesdays we had (sound of terrified scream) oatmeal.

Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe

Now, I just want to go on record as sayin’ I personally have nothing – nothing against a big ol’ steamin’ bowl of oatmeal! Especially when topped by a thick pat of rich butter, maybe a little brown sugar, and a handful of fresh blueberries. I’ll tell ya; that’s something that really hits the spot with little ol’ me!

The problem, as it turned out, was an incident that had happened several years before. See, the thing was… well, they sorta accidentally, um, burned the oatmeal. Oh, not so you could tell by lookin’ at it, mind you. But when tasted, you could tell it was definitely “off spec”, if you follow me.

I don’t know about you, friends, but if you’ve never had the, er, joy of slapping a spoonful of burned oatmeal onto your taste buds, well Bubba, you simply ain’t lived! It sorta brings to mind that horrible, acrid smell of popcorn that’s been overcooked and burned by a microwave oven. You know how that awful odor kinda lingers in the air… well, it ain’t something you’ll ever forget, that’s for sure.

Nothing Travels Faster Than a Rumor

The thing was, quite a few of these kids had attended camp year after year, with the inevitable result that word had gotten out about the infamous Day They Burned The Oatmeal. So by the time Wednesday rolled around, well, you can guess can’t ya? Yup; even though it had happened several years previously (and had never happened since) the very sight of a big ol’ bowl of oatmeal on the breakfast table was enough to cause every kid in the building to run screaming into the woods.

To be sure, we heroically tried everything to head it off at the pass, so to speak. The staff heaped our own bowls with gobs of oatmeal, loading ‘em up with as many tasty extras as we could find. We loudly proclaimed the virtues of the stuff. One guy tried lathering his with gummi bears, but alas, to no avail. We even tried contests and other incentives. Alas, it was all for naught. It seemed nothing could overcome the dire tales of disaster and woe already passed down to the younger children by The Grapevine.

I mean, it was bad enough the kids had blown this thing all out of whack. But the stories! By then they’d pretty much reached, well, epic proportions. “Whatever you do, don’t eat the oatmeal,” they’d say. “It’ll make you grow a third eye right in the middle of your forehead!” Or, “Don’t eat the oatmeal; you’ll never ever have children.” (That one was for the girls.) And then there was my personal favorite: “Don’t eat the oatmeal, it’ll turn you into a blood-sucking zombie!”

But even more serious, since there was always so much oatmeal left over, it caused the cooks to waste perfectly good food. (You’d think they would’ve taken the hint and prepared less – but I guess hope always springs eternal, y’know?) Leftover food was definitely not a good thing, though. As with any camp, money – and the wise use thereof – was always a primary issue.

Lightning Storms on the Brain

Finally, the Camp Director had had enough. Determined to resolve the situation once and for all, he called for a Council of War later that evening after all the kids had gone to bed and settled down for the night. We left our Assistants in charge of the various cabins and gathered in the dining hall with the Director and the cooks.

“OK, you all know the problem,” he began without preamble. “Let’s brainstorm some ideas on how to solve it.”

Within minutes, quite a few ideas had been proposed. The most popular was kinda obvious: serve something else. Unfortunately this simply wouldn’t do – for a couple of reasons. First of all, the food for the entire summer had already been purchased. There were no funds for an alternative breakfast; somehow they would just have to make do.

Another idea was disguise it with more toppings – more fruit; more sugar, M&M’s, snails, whatever. Unfortunately, that one wasn’t working too well. No amount of fruit could hide the fact that it was, y’know oatmeal, and too much sugar was, well, pretty unhealthy, to say the least. As for the M&M’s and snails… well, never mind.

After about 20 minutes, we managed to narrow it down to two possibilities: One was, call the kids’ homes and have their parents make the kids eat it. Unfortunately, there were too many parents to easily reach, and cell phones hadn’t yet been invented. So scratch that one as too impractical. Besides, we kinda wanted to handle this one internally, if you know what I mean.

The other idea was to find a way to stop those ridiculous stories. To which the following question then applies: Have you ever tried to stop a rumor?

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Yep; that’s about the size of it. Here we were, the best and brightest of the entire camp organization (at least, we liked to think so), and this was the best we could do. Pretty sad, I’ll tell ya. Nevertheless, we all decided there might be some merit in that last suggestion, so we concentrated on it for a while.

As I heard idea after idea (not to mention some pretty profound silences), that’s when it began to happen – the apparent gravity of the situation seemed to give rise within me to say something silly, just to lighten the mood. Now please understand, this was serious; it was a genuine problem that needed a genuine solution, no mistake about it. But I just couldn’t help it – inside I was doing my best to stifle the ingrown chuckle that was steadily sneaking up on me. There we were, wrestling with the ramifications of serving oatmeal for breakfast. I mean, fer cryin’ out loud!

But I knew; if I were to say the thing that was desperately trying to break out into the light of day, it would not only ruin what little headway we’d made, but it might possibly irritate the Director or, even worse, the cooks. And believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was get them mad at me!

Still, it kept on building up inside me, ready to burst out into the open like a grape in a microwave. I squirmed and squiggled, got up and then sat down again, tried to count to 100 backwards, but alas, nothing helped. Finally, as everyone else was in the midst of trying to figure out ways to keep those stupid stories from spreading around, and I couldn’t stand it anymore and the following fateful words escaped my lips:

“Well, you could always threaten to glue their mouths shut with the oatmeal!”

I’m tellin’ ya; you could probably have dropped a live hand grenade – without the pin – in our midst with less effect. There was at least a full minute of shocked silence while everyone sorta looked up, then down, then pretty much everywhere except at me. The Director had a stunned look on his face, then quickly turned to look at the cooks to see what their reaction would be.

I think everyone sorta “braced for impact” as we awaited the Head Cook’s no-doubt righteously indignant reaction. And I distinctly remember thinkin’ to myself, “Self, we’re a long way from civilization; I wonder if they’ll ever find my body?”

Great Moments in History

For a moment, all she could do was stare at me with wide-eyed incredulous disbelief. Inwardly, I cringed, waiting for the boom to be lowered upon my unprotected head. But then… a miracle!

She suddenly put her head back and began laughing so loud, and so hard, she very nearly fell off the stool! You’ve heard of folks laughing with their entire body, right? Well, she did that, and before long every one of us was rolling on the floor with gales of laughter I’d swear (if my Momma hadn’t taught me not to) you could’ve heard in Dallas!

It was one of those genuinely memorable moments, y’know? We all laughed, tears in our eyes, for about 15 minutes until finally the Director raised his hands for silence. “You know what?” he told us. “I was reading in my Bible this morning from Proverbs, and I saw something that definitely applies here.” He opened his Bible up to chapter 11, verse 14 and read this verse: “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.”

“I want to thank you for coming tonight to help us resolve this unusual and strangely thorny challenge we’re facing. Although I’m not sure we’ve quite solved it yet, it gives me great comfort to know that with the multitude of Counselors we have here tonight,” – and here he looked straight at me, and with a big smile, no less – “well, it’s good to know you guys are on the case!”

The Proof is in the Pudding Oatmeal

To tell you the truth, although I can’t remember if we ever did solve that “thorny little problem”, I look back on that event with a great deal of nostalgia. Besides, for the rest of that summer we were stuck with the oatmeal anyway, so what the hey, right? The cooks continued to serve oatmeal every Wednesday and, at least as far as I know, nobody turned into a zombie or grew another eye or anything.

That was the last summer I spent as a Counselor (no, I wasn’t barred from returning, smarty pants; I just got too busy after that), so I don’t know if they still serve oatmeal on occasion. My guess? Probably not. Sometimes ya just gotta bow to the inevitable, y’know?

But as I look back on that memory, I still can’t believe I said what I did. I mean, c’mon! What if those fine ladies who slaved over a hot stove all day to feed us incredible food had been angry instead of tickled by what I’d said? What if the Director hadn’t been the kind-hearted understanding fellow he was? What if my careless words had hurt some feelings? It was a risky thing I’d done, and to tell you the truth, I hadn’t really thought it through.

Still, I like to think I’ve matured a bit since that day, y’know? After all, not every situation can be rescued with laughter – nor is it appropriate to do so. Oh, with enough time and distance humor may come to the fore anyway. But that’s not always the case as a given situation is happening.

I admit it; I was pretty lucky that day. If the other folks hadn’t been who they were, things might have turned out very differently. Come to think of it, they might not have ever found my body! My name would have become the stuff of legends, whispered around campfires as yours truly, The Wandering Dutchman of Summer Camp, would still be wandering around that lonely, isolated camp on damp misty nights, forever doomed to search for that elusive perfect bowl of oatmeal…

Anyhoo, this story and thought seemed like an appropriate one with which to begin this brand shiny new year, y’know? The lesson is this: Be aware of your words! After all, if you can’t learn that, you just might not make it to next year, if you get my meanin’! I’m just sayin’.

Happy New Year, y’all!

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Memory Walk, CC by Robert Hruzek

Notes from my Brazil Travel Journal:

Having been privileged (or cursed, depending upon how you choose to look at it) enough to travel so much, flying domestically has become rather humdrum to me. Usually I simply pass the time with a good book.

For some reason, though, this time I struck up a conversation with the nice lady in the seat next to me. It turned out she was on her way to Madrid, Spain, to meet her husband, who is working somewhere in Africa.

Before too long, we found ourselves sharing stories about the different places we’d been, and it struck me anew how literally everyone has a story to tell, don’t they? The thing is, some folks have the remarkable ability to be able to recall ‘em at the drop of a hat. Others (like little ol’ me) need some kind of “tweak” to drag them out into the open.

As for me, it usually takes an image, a word, or even a factoid in someone else’s story to open up that dusty file cabinet in the ol’ memory banks and pop out a file folder I’d completely forgotten about.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our brains had a sort of Google application to find specific memories? Wow, how would that work, anyway? After all, with an entire lifetime of memories, it would take even the fastest computer chip to search that many bytes of information.

Anyway, in the meantime I’ll just have to rely on the only sure method – using one memory to find another. Alas.

What about you? Do you find it easy to recall stories from your own past? Or are you like me – you need a crowbar to pry ‘em out? What technique would you suggest to improve that ability? I’d love to know!

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I’ve really been busy the last couple of weeks, what with this and that looming large on my horizon (more on that Monday). So I thought I’d just take a minute to point you to last Friday’s post, Solve the Mystery, in which I posted a photo of a strange sign I found in a hotel not too long ago, and then asked if anyone could interpret it.

I still can’t believe how many folks stopped by and left a guess! As of this writing, there have been 26 guesses so far – some of ‘em quite hilarious – and one correct answer. Yep, that’s right, a big ol’ tip o’ the hat goes to Kevin E. Blake for figuring it out. (I’d pop in a link to Kevin’s website – but he didn’t leave one! Missed an opportunity there, Bubba! Just sayin’)

In case you’re wondering, I won’t keep you in suspense; it means “Ticket Counter”, and he even found the complete listing of international signs. Way to go, Kevin! Now, if you happen to see that particular sign in the future, you’ll know what it means.

But… there’s still a mystery here. If I’d stepped back and photographed the whole area, you’d see what I saw – there’s no ticket counter anywhere within sight of this sign! So I’m not sure it’s all that helpful. But maybe that’s just me, bein’ picky.

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[Warning: Slight political rant here today.]

Light.

It’s one of those things we can’t do without, y’know? Over the centuries of human existence, light has become culturally synonymous with enlightenment, clarity, and all things positive.

Darkness, on the other hand, is equated with fear, obfuscation, and secrets.

Maybe that’s because light is so useful in revealing that which is not clearly seen. For instance…

Early Morning in Downtown Houston

I was downtown Houston a few weeks ago for a seminar. It was on the 4^th floor in a rather nice hotel next to the Convention Center (that unusual-looking building you see in this photo).

Since the traffic situation was a big fat unknown to me, I decided to go fairly early. (I live in Tomball, a small town on the outskirts of NW Houston – a drive of about 40 miles.) As usual, leaving earlier meant ‘way less traffic, so that was good. On the other hand, I got there so early it was still about an hour and a half before the seminar started.

To kill some time I spent an hour or so watching the sun rise and shooting a few photos in Discovery Green Park, a small park right across the street from the hotel. (You’ll no doubt hear more about the Park in future posts, but if you’re interested, you can check out some of the photos I took here.)

Anyway, just before the seminar started, I was helping myself to something from the breakfast buffet (don’t worry; it was healthy stuff – promise!) when I happened to glance out the window. Or to be more painfully accurate, I glanced at the window.

Yuck!

I mean to tell ya; it was disgusting! It looked like… well, forget the descriptive; you can see for yourself. The morning sunlight had dramatically illuminated the dirt on this window to the point where it was almost all I could see!

Needless to say, if you folks from the hotel staff are listening, I think you might want to invest in a bottle of Windex and a big ol’ bucket of elbow grease. (There’s even a convenient ledge upon which to stand – just, um,  don’t step back to admire your work! Just sayin’.)

The Power of Light

Yep; no doubt about it, light can be a pretty powerful tool when it comes to revealing stuff.

You can use light to find something lost. The other day, Mrs. MZM dropped a tiny little pill on the rug in our bathroom. Now, you’d think something like that would be pretty easy to find, right? I mean, the rug ain’t that big! But no, because of its color, it simply blended into the rug. So I turned on a flashlight and held it down low, parallel to the floor. Sure enough, the shadow of the pill gave it away! Voila!

Have you ever tried to convince someone to do something – but it was based on, perhaps, shaky logic? No need to raise your hand, my friends; we’ve all done it, haven’t we? I mean, from childhood (it wasn’t me, Mom!) it’s been a long succession of attempts to convince folks I knew what I was talkin’ about.

And what about (sound of terrified scream) politics? How many times has one politician after another made a statement – or ten – that simply didn’t hold up under the application of a little light on the subject? I mean, what’s with that, anyway? And what’s even sillier – they actually get upset when you do it, too! As if they were tryin’ to, y’know, put something over on us…

I mean, take the fracas over Health Care that’s goin’ on here in the U.S. (please!) You’ve got folks on both sides talkin’ as loud as they can, tryin’ to convince you they’re right and the other guy is wrong. Hey, I say we drag out the light and let’s take a look at it!

Does it do this, or that, or even that other thing? With just a little examination, we can find out for ourselves just what it says. Why be afraid of reading it, y’know? And why do they object to us reading it, I wonder?

All I’m sayin’ is, light can be a most powerful tool when it comes to discovering something fundamental – like the truth. And when folks start objecting to its use, well Bubba, don’cha find yourself wonderin’ just what exactly they’ve got to hide?

I’m just sayin’.

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Too Close For Comfort

Sometimes important lessons lurk in the most innocuous places, y’know?

Take a look at this photo, for instance. Don’t worry; no marauding alligators lurking in here this time! Nope, this time it’s just a… (sound of terrified scream) spice rack.

Let’s see… ya got your ground cinnamon, a large can of sea salt, one of those rectangular cans of nutmeg, a little tiny (yet somehow, ridiculously expensive) bottle of vanilla extract…

But here’s the deal. Right next to the ground cinnamon on the top rack there’s a bottle of chili powder. Anyone see the danger? I mean, it’s a bottle of cinnamon (ooh, sweet!) right next to an almost-identical bottle of (aack!) chili powder!

Can you say “catastrophe”?

They Say It’s the Thought That Counts

Let’s say, as a surprise for my beloved Mrs. MZM, I decided to make a nice, hot batch of chocolate-chip cookies. (Unfortunately, thanks to the diet we’re on, this is only an imaginary scenario. *sigh*) Now I ask you; what’s the absolute best thing to top a big ol’ plate of fresh-baked cookies? You guessed it – a light dusting of ground cinnamon! (I’m tellin’ ya, folks – even as I write this, my tummy is doin’ somersaults!)

But lemme ask ya: What if I were to accidentally grab the chili powder instead of the cinnamon? Hey, it’s not so far-fetched – they’re right there next to each other, y’know? Can you picture the potential for disaster?

An Evening Filled With Promise

Now, imagine the Mrs. and I are parked on the bear skin rug in front of the fireplace for a nice, romantic evening. (By the way, we don’t actually have a bear skin rug. But it makes a nice scene, don’cha think? Besides, I don’t think I could stand having the thing stare at me accusingly, y’know?)

Anyhoo – the lights are low; there’s a candle or two lit for ambiance. A couple of glasses of chilled sparkling water fizz quietly on the table, their gently rising bubbles catching the candlelight provocatively. The sweet sounds of gentle jazz on the sound system soothes the day’s stress away.

Now for a final surprise, I bring out my just-baked batch of cookies for that little extra “somethin’special”. Mrs. MZM’s eyes light up in delight at the unexpected treat. She smiles delightedly as she reaches for a still-warm golden delight and gently places it upon her tongue.

– then her eyes grow wide in shock as she begins to violently choke! Do ya think the accidental use of chili powder instead of cinnamon might, well, ruin the mood? Yup; pretty much like that iceberg sank the Titanic!

Pay Attention!

Anyhoo – my point is, there’s little surprises like this one all over the place. I mean, life if full of ‘em, y’know? So what’s a body to do? Hey, there’s actually a pretty simple solution: you just gotta pay attention.

How many times have you suddenly discovered you’ve been on autopilot for the last 10 minutes while your brain took a short holiday and wandered around on its own? It usually happens when you’re doing something you’ve done a thousand times before, like driving to work, or watching the weather. (Here’s a typical conversation at our house immediately after the weather forecast: “Dear, what did he say the weather was going to be like tomorrow?” “I don’t know, Honey, my mind wandered off for a minute and I missed it.”)

So consider this a friendly little reminder, y’all! Pay attention to the stuff around you – especially the small stuff! Hey, you never know when a seemingly insignificant detail could make a really, really BIG difference! Just sayin’.

What About YOU?

So when was the last time you narrowly avoided a disaster of epic proportions by noticing a seeming “small” detail? What was it, and how did you manage to catch yourself before something, um, undesired happened? Did you learn anything from it?

Enquiring minds want to know!

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