We talked in my writing classes at UVU today about the importance of seeing things from various points of view. I used the following story as an illustration.
In the early 1990s, Roger and I lived in Highland, Utah, and one of our neighbors worked for the R.C. Willey in Orem. Every Saturday, the store served free hotdogs and they'd hire various youth groups to work the event. A couple of times our neighbor arranged it so we could take a group of teenage girls from church to raise money for camp.
The lines were always huge. At least I heard they were huge. I always spent the whole time out back on the loading dock grilling the hotdogs.
Inevitably the girls who were serving them up would hear complaints about the way they were cooked (sorry, that would be me not pulling them off the grill in time) or that they had too much ketchup or mustard on them. We'd talk about it on the way home, everyone wondering why people thought they had a right to complain about something that was free.
It was true no one paid money for the hotdogs. But they did pay with their time in line. An hour, maybe even more! Imagine investing that much time only to be disappointed. That's not too hard to understand.
Still, it doesn't justify whining at my girls.
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