The other day a friend walked through my kitchen.
"Wow! You have really stepped it up! It looks great in here!"
She was right. I had made the extra effort to clear counters, and put away peanut butter. Having her notice felt good.
By that evening, after an ambitious supper of stir fry, quinoa, tofu and cashew sauce there were dishes on every surface. There was no way to determine if the counter was wiped because you couldn't see it. Ah well, some successes are short lived.
Many years ago an elderly woman in the congregation took it upon herself to get my act together. She arrived one morning to give me a bucket load of advice on how to train my children. Obviously, from the state of my house, I was a failure in this regard.
As it happened there was a short lived period in which I wrote a list of chores each day. Every kid was required to finish two before indulging in screen time, Legos, or other pleasurable activities. As the kids woke up one by one they bolted into the living room to find the list and claim two.
She was impressed. The first thing they thought about upon waking up was work? Maybe I was not as much of a loser as she thought.
What she did not know, and I was not about to tell her, was that their interest was not based on industriousness, but on nabbing the easiest jobs. Taking out one trash can was faster than emptying the dishwasher, and each of them had their favorites. Or shall I say least disagreeable.
While we chatted my kids whisked around us getting the mundane responsibilities out of the way so they could get on with real life.
I enjoyed the illusion. She left without reforming my family.
All of us collect impressions about other people. But how many of them are based in reality?
