Monday, June 09, 2008

Sauce ain’t all that

A while back, I was visiting my niece and nephew and they had a bit of an argument that is a perfect analogy to so many things in life. They were making lunch for themselves, leftover spaghetti. My sister and I were sitting outside and my nephew came out crying, “Sister took all the noodles and is only giving me sauce.”

Of course, my sister called her daughter outside to see what was going on. My niece, a very expressive and intelligent child, crossed her arms, sighed and rolled her eyes and said, “I am really hungry. I want all the noodles. I don’t see what he is complaining about. I gave him sauce. Why can’t he just be happy that he gets something?”

In children, such behavior is age-appropriate. Problem is, a lot of adults seem to be that way too.

I am blessed or cursed with the tendency to speak my mind. When something sucks, I’m usually pretty vocal about pointing it out, a la “umm, there are no noodles in this spaghetti.” This tendency seems to earn me, in certain circumstances, the label of negativity. I find this irritating, given I am often pointing out something as obvious as “gravity exists on Earth.” Folks, eating sauce alone won’t kill you. But that doesn’t make it wonderful. It doesn’t make it satisfying. It just sucks.

And in case you were wondering, my nephew got some noodles, in the end.

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

You are not negative. Period. Anyone who says so is just trying to shut you up.