'Fragile.' Must be Italian...

Okay - so it's been a month (almost) - but I have a good excuse, of course...

You know we've been packing - well that went into high gear about three weeks ago - and then this week has been move week (the new house has no internet or TV yet - so we've been plugging away on unboxing our stuff - in between meetings...).

So, a quick post as I wait for the wedding rehearsal that I have this afternoon...

At the new house we are surrounded by boxes. Yeah, no surprise, I know. Those boxes are almost all labelled (I say almost, because I packed a few that I forgot to label and so we're discovering them all over the house...)

The labels were helpful for the folks who helped us move - which room this box or tote goes in, etc. We only had to really give direction on the furniture, and a lot of that is pretty self explanatory (you know, there's only one living room so the end tables are likely to go there and not, say, the bathroom). So, unloading went pretty quickly.

Un-PACKING, however...sigh...

So here's the thing about the labels we put on the boxes. Packing boxes isn't exactly...um...intellectually stimulating. Okay, it's downright mind-numbing. So sometimes we'd tape up a box and say, "Okay, what did I just put in here?" Or sometimes we'd remember the LAST thing we put in the box, say a couple towels from the kitchen to help fill in the empty space on a box of knicknacks from the living room and we'd mark the box "Kitchen." Quite a surprise when you open a box marked kitchen and find it filled with precious moments Noah's Ark stuff. And sometimes we'd end up labeling the box based on the room we packed it in, not it's contents (so a box of bathroom stuff ends up being labeled Living Room - again, a bit of a confusing box to open and unpack...).

But that stuff happens. Things get mis-labeled, or labeled only partly correctly and when you open them up and look at what's really inside, you're surprised.

But I was thinking as I was driving to the church this morning how that happens with people. How often do I label someone based on the first thing I see/notice/hear/comprehend about them?

An example from a long time ago:

I was waiting in line at the car wash (so you know this was a long time ago, since I haven't washed a vehicle in at least ten years - okay, I'm kidding, but I don't do it too often). Anyway, it was a hot day and the bays were full and so I pulled in behind a guy who looked like he was finishing...but he wasn't. He took forever.

No, really - I'm still waiting in that line... Okay, well - it FELT that way, anyway. Other cars went through on either side. But not my line (by the way, I have a history of choosing the slowest line everywhere I go)... So I'm getting impatient and unhappy and thinking this guy is the most selfish clueless jerk in the world and I'm watching him like a hawk - looking for some sign that he's almost done...sigh...no....no....wait he's....no........

FINALLY, I see him hang up the wand and go to the machine where you put your money in and where you switch from rinse to soap to whatever (I think there's a wax setting - yeah, I've ever used THAT). And then he puts one - two - three - four - five more quarters in the machine, smiles and waves and pulls out.

So, I got like five or six minutes (heck, this was so long ago that a buck and quarter probably got you two hours of car washing...j/k) of free car wash - from a guy I had labeled as...let me look "the most selfish clueless jerk in the world..." based on...what? Five minutes of observation that was, I can admit now (because I'm a much more mature now, of course), tainted by my own impatience and unhappiness with having to do the task at hand to begin with.

Labels.

Helpful? Yep. Oh, he's a pastor. Oh, she's a doctor. Dad, friend, artist, wife. Helpful, caring, great guy (one I use a lot). Yeah, they're helpful. But incomplete.

Those labels that we share with each other about other people - let's be careful they say what we mean - and that we've peeked inside the boxes a bit to really know what's inside, okay?

You know. Fragile. Handle With Care.