As befits…
by Alex on 16/08/10 at 12:07 pm
At some point, karma does catch up with you; the universe is just that accurate about your accounts. If you don’t believe in karma, then remember that the things we do can cast long shadows.
It was the middle of March and there was snow all over the ground. I had come into work and was standing at the coffee machine looking at the parking lot one story below. I was halfway through pouring a cup of coffee when I saw a small truck pull into the lot and maneuver into the spot next to my car. The truck hit my car.
I don’t have a particularly nice car, but it’s my car and I can’t afford to have it in the shop for any amount of time. I saw the person who hit me, Sam, was a co-worker.
I said something you can’t repeat in front of children and went back to my desk.
Normally this is the kind of thing that sends me into the old red rage but I can’t do that anymore. The tantrums I used to indulge in don’t really help. Sure, it feels good to start yelling and kicking garbage cans, but it almost never changes the situation. I sat down and waited for something to happen.
Honestly, my glass-half-full mentality told me that the guy was not going to say anything to me at all. I think that was a wish from the monster in his cave. If the guy came up and acted as if nothing had happened, I would have felt justified about yelling and kicking the aforementioned garbage can.
Sam came in, walked right up to me and said, “You own the green VW, right? I just hit your car, you better come look at it.”
I went outside to see that nothing had happened at all. There was a spot on the right front quarter panel where the salt had been moved around, but there was no real damage. I felt a lot better immediately. This was something I could let slide.
Sam was not having it, he gave me his insurance information and told me to get it checked out and his company would take care of everything.
I got the car washed, there was nothing out of place on the car, and I promptly forgot about the entire thing. That is, I forgot about it until last week.
Sam got himself a job working PR for one of the communities we cover and was in the process of wrapping up his affairs at the newspaper. It was after lunch on Wednesday when he walked up to my desk and put down a bottle of The Dalmore scotch whisky.
“Huh?” I said.
“I just wanted to say thanks about the thing when I hit your car,” he said.
“Dude, it was nothing. You didn’t even scratch the paint,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But you could have written off everything on that side of the car. Thanks for not doing that.”
Well, I’ll be dipped. I spent the rest of the day with a high-toned bottle of liquor on my desk. Of course, there was no cracking it in the office but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t let everyone else know that I had a bottle of high-toned liquor handed to me out of nowhere.
Not that I’m the kind of guy to put a value on a gift, but I know you don’t come near a fifth of 12 year-old Highlands product for under $40. Sam’s got some class, I must say.
I couldn’t crack into that when I got home because I had to get downtown to see my neighbor’s daughter, Victoria, performing at the Max Fisher Music Center. Her father, Oliver, pulled me aside a few weeks ago to tell me she was performing with the Civic Jazz Orchestra and invited me to go.
Now Victoria is 14 years-old and I’ve known her since she was about 7. Over the years I’ve heard her practicing the saxophone two doors down during the summer months and seen her being ferried back and forth from music lessons during the winter. She’s cute as a button and sharp as a tack. Since the seventh grade, she has been attending a performing arts school on the east side.
I showed up after the lights had been turned down and found a seat in the back of the room. There she was with about 20 other kids aged 12 through 18. Long story short, they played an hour-long set of really tight, really good music. I don’t know jazz, but I know when something is being done well.
Halfway through the show, Victoria got up for her featured performance. She played the lead sax line for “Harlem Nocturne” (or, the theme from the Mike Hammer show, if you like). It’s this slow, smoky thing. Believe me, you’d like it. After the first four bars you were convinced you needed to own a fedora and do private investigations.
Victoria was fantastic. She didn’t miss a note standing in front of 200 parents, all of whom were deadly serious about jazz. It was really nice.
I made a point of catching up with her at the reception after the show. I caught up to her in front of the brownie table. Her eyes lit up, “You came! You came!”
She hadn’t expected me to see the show that night. Sure, I told her father that I would be there, but I’ve been the invisible neighbor for the last three years. Situations were strange and I had been keeping a low profile. When I think about it, I wouldn’t have put good money on someone who had been acting like me either.
But I kept my word and came to the show; it made a big deal to her.
What am I getting at? Two things that I didn’t think anything of at the time were very big to other people.
I think we’d all be well-served to remember that other people don’t measure the world the same way we do. Something that you don’t notice might mean a lot to other people.
That’s what makes the Master’s call for us to act as becomes a man and a Mason such a good piece of advice. Every day, each of us interacts with many people, even if for only a couple of seconds at a time. If we’re more careful about how we act, what we say and how we approach situations, how much better of an influence can we be on the world?
I could have burned Sam for everything on the right side of my car. I could have sat home and watched TV with a glass of something “…well structured with silky smooth malty tones – a hint of Oloroso sherry lingers in the background. It shows great finesse, extolling fragrances of orange, marmalade and spiced notes.” I pulled that from the website.
I did the right thing twice. Acting as befits…is its own reward.
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