Saturday, September 19, 2015

Mine ... and Then Yours

Photo description: A cartoon drawing of a donkey's head.
Joe was going down to get the car, I was getting off at the lobby to go out and wait for his arrival. Our building is near the university so every September we have a new batch of students living here. The are almost, to a one, lovely kids. As we rode down one of these new students, a young fellow, was riding with us. I got out of the elevator first and said to him, "Do you mind if I follow you out?" He understood immediately that I wanted him to hold the door for a second so I could come through. "Sure," he said, eager to be of help. I could see he was a nice kid.

Now we are in the outer lobby and I said to him, "I'll do the next doors by myself but thanks for holding this one." He nodded and then opened the next doors, which are double doors, and looked back holding the right door open. I smiled and said, "No, it's OK, I can get through on my own."

He said, "Oh, I see, you need both doors held open. I can do that." Then he moves to hold them both open which, of course, has his body blocking the way. He holds it like this for only a second and then he begins to laugh. "You can't get through me now can you?"

"Well, no," I said.

"I should have just listened, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"I'm sorry, sometimes I try to hard, causes me all sorts of problems." He continued to laugh.

I laughed with him and said, "My disability has me sitting on my ass ..."

It took him a second and then he exploded with laughter, "... and mine makes me an ass!!! That's wild, that's wild, that's just wild. I'm going to use that all day today!"

Then, with a wave, he let the door go, I pushed my way through, and got settled to wait for Joe. When the young student got to the sidewalk he turned, waved, and I heard him start to laugh again.

As I said, nice kid.
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3 comments:

  1. clairesmum19 September 2015 at 13:38

    that's great! he won't forget the lesson, leavened with humor, about the importance of listening....sometimes the most important lessons are not taught in the classroom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Utter Randomness19 September 2015 at 15:55

    I wish more people understood that we can't wheel through them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ABEhrhardt19 September 2015 at 18:25

    You could say something like, "Okay. Now hold the door open, and dematerialize so I can drive straight through you."

    That should get the point through - although when the pupil is eager, almost anything does the teaching.

    ReplyDelete

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