Two Sides to a Story

There are always two sides to every story. I fully believe that. I also believe that someone’s perception may not be what was meant but its still how they see it and you should try to see an issue from their side before you make judgments. Just because something was said doesn’t mean that it was received the way it was intended.

Several months ago the father of my daughters’ friend asked me if he could take them to see the Nutcracker in town at the end of December. He said his ex-wife (their friend's mother) and another of his daughters friends would be going along with her mother. They would take the train into the city, eat lunch, see the show, check out the local Christmas decorations and head home in time for dinner. The girls were very excited and with all the mothers going I didn’t have a problem sending them along. I don’t feel completely comfortable with the father. He seems to have very little control of his daughter (who needs control) and he doesn’t like to take no for an answer. When he wanted to take my daughters camping last summer and we didn’t feel comfortable with them going he continued to ask and give reasons why it would be okay. Apparently his daughter really wanted the girls to go along so he kept it up until finally I was forced to remind him that no thank you means no. It made me feel rude and I don’t like when someone activates my Jewish mother inflicted guilt.

So the other day Mr. H called and asked if I received his email about the show. I had not, so instead of telling me what was in it he said, “I’ll send it again.” Whatever… so as of last night I still hadn’t received the email so I called him to get the information and he said, “I’ll send it again.” Are you kidding me? Now I’m wondering what’s in the email that he doesn’t want to say. So late last night I check and its there. It’s full of information about train times, etc. The very last line is “I’m going to pay for the show and transportation but please send money with the girls for lunch.” Okay, no problem. I appreciate you taking them to the show; I certainly don’t expect you to feed them but… (don’t you love buts) when you invited them you mentioned the show, transportation and food as part of your day. I wish you would have told me ahead of time the girls would need cash. I figure you sent the email a few days ago so I would know but when I didn’t get it by late yesterday I wish you would have told me about it on the phone. Now it’s 9:30 at night, freezing outside, and I’m running a 101.5 fever and I only have about 4 dollars in cash in my pocket. So I’m forced to give them my debit card. They have used it before but I don’t feel comfortable with them getting food in a train station (there are a bunch of grab a quick meal restaurants in the main terminal), in the city with a debit card. It’s not them it’s the creepy people looking over their shoulder.

This morning The Vet and The Scientist are up early. They are very excited. Last night when I spoke to Mr. H he said he would be here around 9AM to pick up the girls then they were going to drive over to Ms. B (the ex-wife) to pick up the other people and they would all be heading to the train station. When I spoke to Ms. B she mentioned in passing that they were leaving from her house at 9AM for a 9:45 train. It’s a ½ hour drive to the train station. So when I talked to Mr. H. last night I mentioned that maybe he should pick them up at 8:50 since it was a few minutes to Ms. B’s. and there wasn’t a lot of extra time to get to the train. I got the non committal answer I expected. The girls were ready to go at 8:50 and he showed up at 9:05; are you ready for this? He invited himself in (well, it is freezing out) because now they are meeting here instead of Ms. B’s, geez thanks for the heads up on that one.
I have been sick (probably bronchitis) and running a fever. As you can imagine I was not thrilled with entertaining for even the 3 minutes it took Ms. B and the rest of the group to show up. It was so nice to meet someone new looking like crap.