You Never Know. Nor Do I.

One thing you'll find as you experience more and more of life is how it is, what George Carlin said years ago: 

"No two ways about it, there are two sides to every story"

Take the other day.  I was leaving Towson, the county seat, and had parked in the big park-'em-up on the 7th floor.  I was not paying attention to a whole lot of other things beside my own job, and down by the police station, a guy was standing on the corner remonstrating loudly because a police car was parked alongside a fire hydrant.  His point was that if he did that right in his own neighborhood, he'd get a ticket, and who does this cop think he is, and why I oughta....

Was a time I might have agreed without looking into it a little bit.  I know that this is the sort of thing that people love to see, and I will say that yes, it does set a bad example...EXCEPT...

what if the cop had just had to run into the precinct house because someone else was under assault and needed help?

what if he or she had just brought in some crook who was resisting and needed backup to subdue him (or her)? 

what if the cop was having chest pains or some other hypercritical symptom?

What if, what if, what if.  Things are not always what they seem.  I know enough police to know that there might have been very good reason for parking by the plug...and enough to know that there might not have been.


And I know enough firefighters to know that if the police station or any other building on that block was on fire and they rolled up on, they would find a way to hook their hard sleeve and get water out of that hydrant.

Flowing nicely...

You might see a friend of yours driving away from a motel parking lot with a female, and never know that it's his niece, Bernice, from San Cerise.  She's in town for the amateur poet competition, specializing in stoic repetition.

You might see someone purchasing milk, butter, eggs and flour and assume they are making a cake, but you really shouldn't assume that you'll be invited over for some.

And you might feel certain that someone named Patrick O'Francis Hoolahan might be of Irish descent, but you never know.  Things are not always what they seem!

Which is not to say that Mr Enraged did not have a point about the car being parked illegally. But Mr Been Around For a While wants to tell him that sometimes, we need to look beyond the curtain to see what happened to set the scenario.  It's not always what it seems to be.