It goes down like pickle juice on breakfast cereal.

A man would have no problem apologizing if it weren’t for one thing. To a man, apologizing counts as being woefully wrong. It’s a chink in his armor.

And when it comes to admitting that he is wrong, most men are stubborn enough to be twins.

That’s why we become pebble pickers. That’s an old baseball term wherein a fielder blamed an error on an imaginary rock by pretending to toss one aside.

We blame others for our mistakes.

There is an old kid’s joke, or maybe it’s a young kid’s joke, that goes like this, “I know there are 26 letters in the alphabet, but each time I recite the alphabet, I come up with only 25. I can’t remember Y.”

I’m not sure why we find scapegoats necessary. We’re humans. Humans make mistakes.

My bride and I stopped to eat at a chicken place. You’d know it. When many of you think of chicken, you likely think of this place. It’s everywhere and it advertises a lot.

I ordered two two-piece meals. A simple order. The cashier told me there would be a 9 1/2-minute wait and asked if I was OK with that. I was. It was much longer than that, more like a 29 1/2-minute wait. Other orders were filled promptly. I’m as patient as a pyramid, but the place wasn’t behaving as a fast food restaurant should. I’m not good at complaining. When people hear complaints, they usually don’t care or are happy that the complainer has complaints.

Realizing that every path has a puddle, I waited a few more minutes before returning to the counter. The same cashier was there. She busied herself with housekeeping tasks as I waited, a one-man line. Perhaps she’d hoped I’d go away. When she finally asked if she could help me, I informed her of the missing meals. She immediately chastised a coworker, a guy obviously a bit lower on the pecking order. I got the two meals. I was asked if I wanted some honey. I always want honey.

What I didn’t want or expect was getting the two two-piece chicken meals free. And I didn’t get that. I didn’t want anything at a discount. I didn’t want a coupon. I didn’t growl or become demanding. I didn’t want the cashier flogged. There is an old proverb that warns against allowing anger to poison even when things are unfair. Dennis Wholey said, “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”

There is seldom any profit in a quarrel.

My wife, The Queen Bee, and I got our food. It was good.

It could have been worse. The cashier could have put her feet up on our table as she applied toenail polish while saying, “Your meal will be delayed. I can’t do everything.”

I’d have liked to have received an, “I’m sorry,” but I didn’t. I know, worse things happen. If that was the worst thing that happened to me that day, it was a blessed day.

I realize that fast food workers are frequently grumbled at unfairly. This might make them sorry shy.

Maybe they aren’t supposed to admit mistakes because they go onto job performance reviews and their district manager, Attila the Hun, considers errors a sign of unacceptable weakness. Mistakes happen. Anyone who has been awake for more than 10 minutes has likely already made at least one. If mistakes didn’t happen the word “mistake” wouldn’t have been coined.

When I was in England, people said “I’m sorry” nearly as often as they breathed.

It’s rare for someone to forget to give a customer a meal. Two meals unaccounted for is even rarer. It’s seldom, when there has been a mistake, that someone doesn’t say, “I’m sorry.” We tend to offer an “I’m sorry” even when it’s not needed or sincere.

There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, that it serves little purpose to criticize any of us.

I’m sorry the young woman didn’t say she was sorry, but I’m not sorry that I feel that way.

 

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.