Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

A Monday Memory

05.22.2023 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

From 10 years ago, when my daughter Scout was nine:

On Division Street, I’m running, Scout is biking. She initiates a huffing/puffing conversation by asking why she is disliked by a certain third-grade contemporary, we’ll call her Olivia.

Resisting the temptation to quote Scout’s late grandmother’s stock line in such situations, “Fuck her if she can’t take a joke,” I remind her that 99 people out of a hundred like her.

Why do people like her? she wants to know.

“I can think of a hundred reasons,” I say.

She waits.

“You’re warm, you’re smart, you’re polite, you’re loving, you care about other people’s feelings and you’re funny.”

“That’s not a hundred.”

“No, but I could come up with a hundred, easy.”

“How about 30?”

“Okay, 30. But not while I’m trying to run, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And as for Olivia? Fuck her if she can’t take a joke.”

I already long for a simpler time ….

Postscript: To this day, when Scout experiences rejection of any kind, all I have to say is, “Well, you know what your grandmother would say.”

And we nod, and smile.

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