The other day, as is my wont, I sent a “bread and butter note”
to a friend for inviting us over for a meal, as I do believe in the grand
Anglican tradition of sending thank you notes. However, I now use electronic
cards — tastefully provided by Jacqui Lawson. Imagine my surprise when I chose
a card, composed a thoughtful message, and then hit “send” only to find
a red notification at the top of J-Law’s web-site that my planned recipient no
longer accepts electronic cards.
Well, that set my back on my heels, not to mention plunged
me into the morass of my hurt feelings.
I got to thinking does this person really receive so many
cards on a daily basis that they are irredeemably clogging their inbox? Couldn’t
my friend, like a few of my other recipients, just decline to open the card and
quietly delete it?
Or are they receiving cards only from me and do not want to
get them, but for some reason don’t want to tell me directly? Why would they not
courteously let me know in advance!
Or is it all a mistake? Might they inadvertently changed a
cookie or some other arcane mysterious inner working on their computer? Maybe they
don’t even know the e-cards are being blocked.
Or maybe they just don’t want electronic cards and I shouldn’t
take it personally? I try so hard to take the high road and be polite,
sympathetic and endlessly forgiving when I really thoroughly enjoy being
sarcastic, judgmental, superior, and hurt. Really, what is wrong with me?? Or
what is wrong with that!
I suppose partly it is so easy to be witty and sarcastic,
but it is not so easy to be witty and kind. I like being witty. Being witty is
revenge in words and it’s often very funny (to me anyway).
So I say to myself and my significant other (who is the soul
of patience and must think I am the worst person in the world), “When I get a
paper card from my friend, maybe I’ll return it and write on the envelope, the
recipient doesn’t accept paper cards anymore.” So there!
I won’t really do that, of course, just think about doing it.
Why is it so important to me to access my sniffy little prissy self? I suppose
recognizing I have an S.L.P.S. is a good thing. I can stand back from my little Slips and
observe it/her/them without inflicting the results on others.
Maybe it’s good to balance one’s good behaviour outwardly to
the world with a little dose of bad behaviour inwardly. A lot of my life seems
to spent being a good, kind, sympathetic person when I really just want to say,
“Oh, give me a break” and be as judgmental as all get out!
All this mental stewing reminds me of St. Paul’s
words to the Romans: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do
what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.(7:15)” Except that in my case, I
keep the thing I hate under wraps and don’t actually do it, but I do let it
fester.
However, in a sidebar to that on-line quotation was this one from Ecclesiastes
7, “All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far
from me.” Well, that seems to sum me up even more accurately.
( ... although possibly not as much fun...)
