On Friday evening I got a useful (and always-needed) reminder to think before I speak.
As we waited for a Christmas concert to start, my friend and I were discussing the upcoming weekend's timetable.
"I don't have much on the schedule for tomorrow," I said.
The eavesdropping woman in the row behind us abruptly leaned forward.
"WHAT?" she said in disbelief. How could anyone, especially a woman, not be swamped two weeks before Christmas? Perhaps I would take care of her to-do list, she suggested, thrusting her phone at me.
I smiled politely but gave my companion an eye-roll. The woman was just kidding, at least I think she was, and there was no way for her to know that by "having nothing on the schedule" I wasn't including the several hours of editing work that, as a freelancer, I do every day. Or perhaps she thought I had "lads" to run my errands for me.
Either way, I didn't feel compelled to explain myself to this stranger.
Contrast that to the nice woman who overheard another friend and me talking at Perkins about our confusion over the Mennonites versus the Amish. She, it turned out, was a Mennonite herself and, after asking it was okay to join our conversation, patiently explained the differences. We thanked her for sharing the information.
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