Blowing apart assumptions; the olive conundrum

2013

As we go through life we develop many assumptions; perhaps something like everybody likes ice cream. Isn’t it a shock when those assumptions are proven wrong?

When I was a boy, every holiday was spent at my mother’s parents house. For reasons unknown to me these past seventy years, we were never invited to my fathers parents. In case you didn’t pick up on that, both were my grandparents. On the other hand, my father’s stepmother was my other grandfather’s sister so my mother’s mother-in-law was also her aunt … assumptions we won’t get into and facts relevant to nothing.

Now, every holiday my grandfather who worked in New York City brought home a gallon jug of giant green olives. I mean based on a boys perspective, these things were the size of avocados. Olives and celery on the table were a big deal. No holiday meal was complete without them. What’s Christmas without green olives stuffed with red pimento?

So, my assumption about olives is well founded.

Last week I was in the supermarket buying a jar of pickles. Standing next to me was a quite elderly lady (that’s coming from the perspective of a seventy year old) on her clamshell phone receiving instructions on which olives to buy. As the minutes went buy she became more and more flustered. She finally hung up and began perusing the jars of olives. “Oh, I don’t know what I’m looking for” she muttered. Given my green olive past experience, I offered to help. “They said something about regular green olives.” Coming to the rescue I showed her the jars of green olives. “This is what you want, I said “Oh thank you, and they have the red things in them too.”

And then came the assumption buster as she said, “I never bought an olive.”

Could it be my other assumptions are wrong too? Will Obamacare make health care affordable? Will Congress do something productive? 😬