Always falling victim to the ambush designed for impulse buyers, I purchased Keebler's Club Puffed Crackers that are being introduced in our area at our local grocery. I thought the girlies would like it with there lunches and while we sat eating and talking of the day's events, my oldest daughter, Casey Grace, sounded an alarm regarding the newly introduced Puffed Cracker. Holding the cracker up in comparison to the picture on the box she exclaimed, "These aren't as big as they are on the box?" I could tell her confusion was the beginnings of a climatic revelation. Harmony chewed on in silence oblivious to Casey's urgency. This catapulted me back to a summer's afternoon when at the ripe old age of 6 I discovered that indeed the 'large print giveth and the small print taketh' away. I became suspect of commercial promises by the discovery that M & M's do indeed melt in your mouth as well as in your hands. I remember holding up my hand to my mom saying, "Hey! I got colors?!" Later that day found me sitting on a swing reevaluating everything I believed up to that point. I had to admit my doubts such as Superman could fly, Spiderman could shoot a web, and Rudolph actually saved Christmas one year. I showed Casey on the box where the small print states that the cracker was enlarged to show texture. She too was storing this experience for future reference. I could hear the gears within her head calculating the perceived deception and I knew she was doomed to the same enquiring mind as mine. How many other areas in life do we find that the sizzle is better than the steak?
Many have read my blogs concerning religion and know that there are many times I staked a claim to have found the truth only to quietly move on to something else to save embarrassment. Sort of like the admission from paleontologists in 1996 when they discovered the wrong head was on the ever popular brontosaurus. No news conference, just a one line explanation in the back of the Dinosaurs' Encyclopedia released the same year. Yes, I am a geek and keep up with such discoveries and disclosures.
Relationships are no different. I used to ask potential dates if they were, "In love, out of love, or still interviewing?" To me the dating experience was one large interview process where we presented our best side in the most marketable package under the guise that we could care less what others thought. Or we went to other extremes and took hostages instead of partners. Either way the infomercial was better than the purchase in most cases. Rosie and I avoided all that hoopla and got married first then dated. It seems to have worked well since we're approaching eight years of marital bliss in March. Hopefully the bliss comment will earn me that 'busy day cake' of hers I like so well.
I have been involved in sales for approximately twelve years and know the insides and out concerning marketing perceptions and how to influence buying decisions. Luckily now I sell industrial equipment and no longer rely on the power close to make a buck. As an experiment during my 'Tin Man' days, I decided to be completely truthful with all my clients for one full business week. No white lies, no exaggerations, and no fluff. The motto if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit was shelved for that week. As a result I sold nothing. Having always been in the top three percent of sales my manager requested a side bar regarding my fumble that week. I simply told him that I was openly honest with everyone and he ordered me to stop that. I wasn't long for that world after because even though I didn't sell anything that week I slept better. The all mighty dollar isn't worth sacrificing self. I did learn one big lesson about most people is that they really didn't want the truth; they wanted to feel good about who they were giving their money to. After all, people buy people not products. We see this played out in the arenas of religion and politics all the time. Who has the best bang for the buck and do I feel good when I support them?
Influencing others through strategic slandering, however vague, can have devastating effects on a personal or grand scale. This was made painfully obvious to the most casual observer in 1991 as Senator Ted Kennedy stated in regards to then Supreme Court Justice hopeful Clarence Thomas, that it wasn't the nature of the evidence that mattered but the seriousness of the allegations. We chuckle at such logic but do we offer any less to those we have judged and character assassinated within our own thoughts based on clothing or hair style before we have heard their stories? I think fear is the main motivating factor in compartmentalizing those that we don't understand.
My father told of a personal story to help guide us to open mindedness and acceptance whenever life's storms honed our uncanny ability to mistrust people, places, and things as Franklins. In his younger days he was a Cincinnati Police officer who hated hippies among other groups. Unfortunately for him, three out of his five children were promoting 'Flower Power.' You could say, as told of Dirty Harry, that he was an equal opportunity hater. His life lesson came while as the cock of the walk he proclaimed Wednesday as "Harass a Hippie Day." He approached a long harried leaping gnome with the hopes of shaking his bell bottoms and condescendingly asked to be told something that would make him feel good all day. The hippie set his tools down and looked him in the eyes and simply said, "Jesus loves you." My father was stunned to speechlessness. He never suspected kindness from someone with hair down to their ass. How can you hit a man with a night stick after that? That experience forever changed him even though he wasn't a religious man per se and he readily told that story as if the keys of the kingdom were passed through the telling. Perhaps they were. By opening the door to humility he discovered that indeed the picture on the cover doesn't necessarily reflect that contents of the box.
You can tell by her big bright eyes in the picture that Casey will always wonder and question. While other children gazed and posed for the camera, she wanted to know how it worked. Perhaps now would be a good time to pass on my first 'How and Why' book I received at her age. I still have it and I still question, wonder how and why to this day. I just hope for her sake that she remains as loving and accepting even when life's disappointments rain on her parade.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
—Herbert Spencer
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