Some Words...

Hurricane Rita is making her way towards the gulf. New Orleans engineers are working feverishly to mend the rest of the levy breaches so the Big Easy doesn't flood again. I feel for that city...but mostly I'm asking, "why or why can't anybody take this as a sign...don't rebuild that city in the same place." "It's going to flood." The question isn't 'if' rather it's 'when'. It got me thinking about signs...when we see them or hear them, do we pay attention? How about this, you walk out of your house in the morning on your way to work, you look up at the sky, it's cloudy and dark, you think to yourself, it's going to rain. Do you go back inside and get your umbrella....most likely you don't. Instead you stand at the bus stop or the train station and you curse because it's now pouring and you are getting wet. Hmmm, wasn't that dark cloudy sky a sign? Ok, so that's a simple sign. How about the more difficult ones. You meet this hot guy, he asks you to dinner, you accept. You make plans, set the time and the date, and then you wait. The night comes when you are supposed to go out, he doesn't come. He doesn't call, email, stop by, flash a red flag (because you surely would have seen the red flag). Do you write him off or do you accept his call when he tries to explain a family emergency kept him from contacting you? Let's say you do accept his lame apology, you set another date. This time he shows, you go to dinner, you eat, you chat, you are having fun. The check comes....he says, "let's split it." Um wait, didn't he ask you out? Didn't he stand you up before? Doesn't he at least owe you dinner? Well maybe, but you pay 1/2 anyway. You have sex, it kind of sucks...and not in a good way. Somehow you end up starting a relationship with this guy. This is how it goes....usually you make dates, sometimes he shows sometimes he doesn't, but he always has a good excuse. The times he does show, you pay. Sometimes he promises he'll call...and you wait, he doesn't call. Your sex consists of him satisfying himself, then falling asleep, leaving you less than satisfied. He's not really the guy you dreamed of, yet you let him stick around. How many signs does it take before you give him the boot? My point, we don't pay attention to signs. I bet most of you have had relationships like the one I described. I bet most of you have left home without an umbrella even though it looks like rain. I guess this is why we'll spend billions to rebuild a city in a place that will surely be destroyed again, because we don't care about signs. We like to learn everything the hard way.