My Reality or Yours
Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy. I don’t mean the type of crazy like when someone smiles at you and says, “You’re so crazy” because something you did was silly and spontaneous. I mean the old fashioned kind of crazy. My head is sometimes a world unto itself, that’s what I mean. Every now and then, something happens that gives me hope that I may not be alone in having a world of understanding that does not extend beyond my own skin. Tonight is one of those nights. Here’s what happened in two such personal realities in Vogar Iceland.
Here’s what happened in the 13 year old girl’s mind. She barely woke enough to stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night. Pretty much asleep, she locked the door and apparently took the key out of the keyhole. When she was done, she turned to door handle. The door did not open. Dreamy panic took over and she cooked up a phantom outside the bathroom trying to get in. All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. The ghost was trying to communicate! She tentatively knocked in response. The voice of her mother’s husband came to ask her what she was doing. “Trying to get out,” she explained. The voice came again to point out that the door was locked and that’s why she couldn’t get out.
Now, here’s what happened in my reality. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sure sound of a kid who’s locked themselves in the bathroom and can’t get out. Now, in my reality, the thought that my 6 year old son must be the one on the other side of the door, but just maybe it’s my 13 year old step-daughter. So I gently knock on the door to find out who it is. The reply comes as a gentle knock back and more rattling of the door handle. So I ask the 13 year old in the bathroom what she is doing. She says she’s trying to get out. I peer into the keyhole (yes, old fashioned skeleton key locks on the doors in my house) and see that the key is not in the lock. I twist the door handle and push. Verdict: the door is locked. In order to lock it, the key must be inside the room. However, a couple of years ago, I was trying to figure out which of the 12 unmarked skeleton keys in the house go with which door. In this quest, I turned one key in the lock and after locking the door the teeth part of the key broke right off in the lock, leaving me with a locked door with no method of unlocking it. Finally, I had to go get the ladder, climb through a tiny window, pop the pins out of the hinges and finagle the door out of the frame. Flash forward to about 3:15 AM June 7th, 2006 and we suddenly understand a smidgen of panic as the image of driving across town to pick up the ladder at my friends house to climb up through a tiny window armed with a hammer and a screwdriver while a 13 year old girl becomes increasingly more panicked pops into mind along with the dread that another key has given up the ghost. Anyway, sense took over as it often does and the next thing out of my mouth was, “The door is locked”. My ears detect the sound of a skeleton key being picked up off the linoleum floor and sliding into a key hole. One turn and the door opens. Out stepped the 13 year old and thinking the problem was solved I climbed back into bed.
Now, in this instance, there was not even a small degree of aggravation in my personal realty. My wife, however, has her own personal reality to add to this story. After I lay down to finish the night’s sleep, she got up and walked out of the room. I thought nothing of it until she returned and said that I need to be more sensitive of the dear girl’s feelings. Taken aback, I asked what she meant. Her reply was a description of how she believed I had been feeling since sometime early in the evening. Her account was not much further from the truth of my emotional state this evening than my irrational dread of going out in the bad weather to get the ladder and all that or my daughter’s imaginary ghost. But she believed and may still believe that her personal reality is the right one.
I wonder how many personal realities there are in the world.
Here’s what happened in the 13 year old girl’s mind. She barely woke enough to stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night. Pretty much asleep, she locked the door and apparently took the key out of the keyhole. When she was done, she turned to door handle. The door did not open. Dreamy panic took over and she cooked up a phantom outside the bathroom trying to get in. All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. The ghost was trying to communicate! She tentatively knocked in response. The voice of her mother’s husband came to ask her what she was doing. “Trying to get out,” she explained. The voice came again to point out that the door was locked and that’s why she couldn’t get out.
Now, here’s what happened in my reality. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sure sound of a kid who’s locked themselves in the bathroom and can’t get out. Now, in my reality, the thought that my 6 year old son must be the one on the other side of the door, but just maybe it’s my 13 year old step-daughter. So I gently knock on the door to find out who it is. The reply comes as a gentle knock back and more rattling of the door handle. So I ask the 13 year old in the bathroom what she is doing. She says she’s trying to get out. I peer into the keyhole (yes, old fashioned skeleton key locks on the doors in my house) and see that the key is not in the lock. I twist the door handle and push. Verdict: the door is locked. In order to lock it, the key must be inside the room. However, a couple of years ago, I was trying to figure out which of the 12 unmarked skeleton keys in the house go with which door. In this quest, I turned one key in the lock and after locking the door the teeth part of the key broke right off in the lock, leaving me with a locked door with no method of unlocking it. Finally, I had to go get the ladder, climb through a tiny window, pop the pins out of the hinges and finagle the door out of the frame. Flash forward to about 3:15 AM June 7th, 2006 and we suddenly understand a smidgen of panic as the image of driving across town to pick up the ladder at my friends house to climb up through a tiny window armed with a hammer and a screwdriver while a 13 year old girl becomes increasingly more panicked pops into mind along with the dread that another key has given up the ghost. Anyway, sense took over as it often does and the next thing out of my mouth was, “The door is locked”. My ears detect the sound of a skeleton key being picked up off the linoleum floor and sliding into a key hole. One turn and the door opens. Out stepped the 13 year old and thinking the problem was solved I climbed back into bed.
Now, in this instance, there was not even a small degree of aggravation in my personal realty. My wife, however, has her own personal reality to add to this story. After I lay down to finish the night’s sleep, she got up and walked out of the room. I thought nothing of it until she returned and said that I need to be more sensitive of the dear girl’s feelings. Taken aback, I asked what she meant. Her reply was a description of how she believed I had been feeling since sometime early in the evening. Her account was not much further from the truth of my emotional state this evening than my irrational dread of going out in the bad weather to get the ladder and all that or my daughter’s imaginary ghost. But she believed and may still believe that her personal reality is the right one.
I wonder how many personal realities there are in the world.
posted by Our Hero, at 4:55 AM
1 Comments:
Aproximatly 6.6 billion.
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