Dangerous Absolutes

Is it just me or have you noticed that just about everything you ever say you (or your children/dog/etc.) will NEVER do – gets done?  For example when you were an immortal teenager (perhaps you are one now, have fun with it) and as you watched the black and white world pass you by, say, shopping at Toys R Us around Christmas time you might say, “My children will never go out of the house in their pajamas, and run through stores like rabid monkeys!”  Flash to the future and introduce your angel of light, let’s call her “Mowgli”. There she is, tearing through the aisles of a shop, biting the heads off Barbie dolls, and there you are, vigilant parent, taking pictures of it.

Perhaps you were a career driven vegetarian business woman with a penchant for Edgar Rice Burroughs, and you stumbled across Tarzan one day, next thing you know you’re married, homeschooling in the jungle and blissfully confused about how it all happened, because you specifically had said:  “I would never marry a hunter.”  “I would never homeschool.”  “I would NEVER live in New York.”  About this time, one might think, you would learn to stop talking, but you don’t. You tell your dog sitter, “Don’t worry, he’s house trained.”



Shut up already. Really?  You still haven’t figured it out though, you're still spouting absolutes. Surely I’m not alone in this phenomenon, have you ever said you’d never?  Told the meter man that your dog doesn’t bite?  And then lived to eat your words?  You know who you are. I find that the list snowballs as time rolls forward and long after you start to suspect that your Maker actually does listen to you and maybe, perhaps, is trying to tell you something, your slow-learner mouth is still going. I get it now though, and I’ll never do it again. Ever.